The Little Flower of East Orange

The Elephant Theatre Company's recently announced affiliation with New York's LAByrinth Theater Company kicks into gear with the West Coast premiere staging of this lacerating 2008 play by LAByrinth co-artistic director Stephen Adly Guirgis ("In Arabia, We'd All Be Kings," "The Last Days of Judas Iscariot"). Guirgis' drama of an Irish family in perpetual emotional turmoil is challenging and often affecting, awash with stunning surrealistic imagery, hard-hitting dialogue, and disturbing themes. Unfortunately, the script feels unwieldy and inadequately focused at times. Nonetheless, director David Fofi's vibrantly staged and consummately acted production offers abundant rewards.

Considerably younger than the 70-something character she portrays, Melanie Jones brings edgy humor and poignancy to hospitalized matriarch Therese Marie, who was discovered unconscious near Cloister's Museum in Manhattan. Therese's high-strung daughter, Justina (Marisa O'Brien), contacts sibling Danny (powerfully enacted by Michael Friedman), a junkie writer ensconced in an Arizona rehab center, urging him to come home to assist with their ailing parent. Danny narrates the play, in a manner vaguely reminiscent of Tom in "The Glass Menagerie," but the brutal family baggage that comes to light makes the play closer to an angst-filled Eugene O'Neill opus than to a lyrical Williams play. The hallucinating Therese is visited in the hospital by Jimmy Stewart (Tim Starks), Bobby Kennedy (Tom Stanczyk) and Pope John XXIII (a cross-gender turn by LeShay Tomlinson Boyce). We learn that Therese is the hearing daughter of deaf parents, and that her brilliant but troubled father (Timothy McNeil) inflicted horrendous abuse on her. His ghost hovers in the background, haunting Therese's psyche. The first act includes several questionably relevant scenes. The play becomes more involving after intermission, when Therese shares a cathartic soul-baring conversation with Danny.

Besides the incisive and moving lead portrayals from Jones and Friedman, the aforementioned supporting actors deliver superb characterizations, with additional fine work provided by Mark Adair-Rios, Nelson Delrosario, Alejandro Furth, and Kate Huffman. Joel Daavid's production design, Louis Douglas Jacobs' costumes, and Matthew Richter's original music and sound are impressive.

Presented by the Elephant Theatre Company at the Lillian Theatre, 1076 N. Lillian Way, Hollywood. Nov. 12-Dec. 19. Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m. (877) 369-9112. www.elephanttheatrecompany.com.