The Woodpecker

During its early scenes, Samuel Brett Williams' new play suggests an old-fashioned kitchen-sink drama. Yet when the piece plunges into the nightmarish world of anti-war drama, it eschews safe conventionality. Think "The Subject Was Roses" meets "The Deer Hunter."

Themes of family dysfunction, emotional and physical violence, and spiritual survival make for a complex yet lucidly dramatized mixture, enhanced with soaring lyricism and dark humor. Director Jon Cohn and a magnificent cast bring Williams' harrowing script to life in a gripping world-premiere staging.

At the heart of this provocative production is the luminous performance of Brian Norris as Jimmy, a sensitive young man preparing to leave his Arkansas trailer-park home to report for military duty in an unspecified country. Jimmy's crosses to bear include an emotionally beaten-down mother (Tamara Zook), who has survived "booby cancer" and is addicted to pills, and an extremely abusive Vietnam vet father (Mark Withers), who demands that Jimmy live up to warped notions of manhood. The youth is tired of this hellish home life yet terrified to go to war.

When Jimmy oversees an appallingly abused Muslim captive (the superb Ryan Nealy) in a prison camp, under the brutal watch of a loose-cannon solider (Andrew Price, appropriately obnoxious and scary), his fortitude is put to the test. An ivory-billed woodpecker Jimmy captured becomes his beacon of hope and beauty.

As the glue-sniffing Jimmy, his face scarred from a bear attack yet more trusting of animals than humans, Norris masterfully illuminates a wide range of emotions, convincingly portraying a gentle-spirited soul with more courage and pluck than are initially apparent.

As Jimmy's desperate mother, who stands up for herself at surprising moments, Zook is hauntingly poignant, as well as explosively funny—as when describing how Jesus arose from her sweet-potato casserole to deliver a message. As written, the wheelchair-bound father displays no likable traits, but Withers' forceful and committed portrayal is compelling. Few moments are more chilling than daddy dearest's promise to give Jimmy a dollar for every "dune coon" he kills while at war.

Kurt Boetcher's set design, Christopher Singleton's lighting, Karla Contreras' costumes, and Leonard Wu's fight choreography add to the gritty potency of this disturbing yet thought-provoking work.

Presented by Mutineer Theatre Company at the Studio/Stage Theatre, 520 N. Western Blvd., L.A. Mar. 5–Apr. 3. Fri.–Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m. (323) 871-5826. www.mutineertheatre.com.