Danny Scheie

MARIN IRELAND ADEPT AT THE RISIBLE OR THE RADICAL Ethereal yet grounded, actor Marin Ireland is magnetically attracted to theatrical projects that are at once ineffably abstract and vulnerably flesh and blood. Patrons of South Coast Repertory had the chance to experience her eccentric comic side last spring in Richard Greenberg's "The Injured Party." But she's revealed rawer nerve endings in darkly radical plays by Caryl Churchill ("Far Away") and Sarah Kane ("4:48 Psychosis" and in this fall's critically acclaimed New York premiere of "Blasted."

Oh dear, Nero's back. The Roman emperor who gave aesthetes a murderous name is once again rasping orders about the fabulous new pageant he wants to produce while pawing men, women and eunuchs with a rapaciousness that would make Hugh Hefner blush. The occasion for this return visit is Amy Freed's comedy "You, Nero," which had its world premiere Friday at South Coast Repertory. And riotously played by Danny Scheie as a sexually omnivorous imp suffering a Liza Minnelli complex, Nero just wants to lavishly entertain us. So what if Rome smells like it's starting to burn.

Oh dear, Nero's back. The Roman emperor who gave aesthetes a murderous name is once again rasping orders about the fabulous new pageant he wants to produce while pawing men, women and eunuchs with a rapaciousness that would make Hugh Hefner blush. The occasion for this return visit is Amy Freed's comedy "You, Nero," which had its world premiere Friday at South Coast Repertory. And riotously played by Danny Scheie as a sexually omnivorous imp suffering a Liza Minnelli complex, Nero just wants to lavishly entertain us. So what if Rome smells like it's starting to burn.

MARIN IRELAND ADEPT AT THE RISIBLE OR THE RADICAL Ethereal yet grounded, actor Marin Ireland is magnetically attracted to theatrical projects that are at once ineffably abstract and vulnerably flesh and blood. Patrons of South Coast Repertory had the chance to experience her eccentric comic side last spring in Richard Greenberg's "The Injured Party." But she's revealed rawer nerve endings in darkly radical plays by Caryl Churchill ("Far Away") and Sarah Kane ("4:48 Psychosis" and in this fall's critically acclaimed New York premiere of "Blasted."

"The Last Hairdresser," Doug Holsclaw's desultory comedy at the Zephyr, expounds upon the travails of growing up gay in a straight world with little novelty and less craft. Director Danny Scheie, who also plays the narrator and lead, fuels the proceedings with as much madcap energy as he and his capable actors can muster, but Holsclaw's vehicle is so clunky that many comic opportunities go begging. The play chronicles the lives, from coming of age to adulthood, of three gay men, Guy (Scheie)

The two sets of crazy mixed-up identical twins in "The Comedy of Errors"--Shakespeare's probable first foray into comedy--afford some nice, cheap prospects for four actors. But why spread them around? The play's twice as much fun with half as many people. In director Danny Scheie's jolly production, now entering the spring repertory at A Noise Within, Donald Sage Mackay plays Antipholus of Syracuse and his long-lost bro, Antipholus of Ephesus.

In 1967, Noel Coward showed his script for "Star Quality" to a producer friend, who was "highly amused by it personally but thought it too esoteric for the great public," Coward wrote. "He was rather flummoxed when I entirely agreed with him." When Coward died in 1973, the script remained unproduced. Now, "Star Quality" is finally emerging on an American stage, at Pasadena Playhouse, in an adaptation by Christopher Luscombe that was presented in 2001 in London.

Nothing is more edifying than to see, in fairly rapid succession, more than one production of the same piece of work. Watching several artists sculpt a different play from the same mass of raw material (usually called text ) is often a fascinating and true test of its greatness. Take "Tartuffe." This summer, the Old Globe in San Diego has gone for a broad, Southern Discomfort "Tartuffe" set in Kentucky, a bit overblown but forgivable.

Kenneth Grahame's richly textured children's book, "The Wind in the Willows," is two stories in one: a joyful, reverent celebration of life and a comic saga about madcap Toad's obsession with automobiles. A.A. Milne, who dramatized Toad's picaresque misadventures in his riotous 1920s adaptation, "Toad of Toad Hall," felt that the beauty in Grahame's book "must be left to blossom there."

The "Hay Fever" at A Noise Within is extremely catching. Only very somber people will fail to succumb to Art Manke's sumptuous revival of Noel Coward's perfectly frivolous comedy. This is the one about a '20s family of self-dramatizing artists and their hapless house guests, all thrown together for one mad weekend in the country. Manke and company nail the laughs time after time.