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One thing you definitely can say about the Repertory Actors Theatre production of "Six Degrees of Separation": It avoids the nasty implication that white and rich and straight are pretty much OK while black and poor and gay definitely are not OK.
Re-Act's mandate is to cast all sorts of people in all sorts of roles. Thus the racial (though not the class and sexual) nastiness inherent in "Six Degrees" is sidestepped. Black and Asian people can be as straight and as rich (and as pretty much OK) as whites in Re-Act director David Hsieh's staging of "Six Degrees."
John Guare's play (based on a true crime story) details how Paul, a gay black hustler, passes himself off as a Harvard undergraduate, a friend of the children of rich Manhattanites and, best of all, Sidney Poitier's son. The celebrity angle really clinches the imposture.
Re-Act's physically simple and ethnically complex production shares certain elements with the swanky Caucasians vs. a tacky African American setup that mars any sort of "Six Degrees" staging -- including the Seattle Repertory Theatre's production and the Fred Schepisi movie, both of 1993. Guare is a satirist. He ridicules all his characters. Elegant, wealthy, sophisticated, genteel Ouisa and Flan hustle a South African billionaire. Meanwhile, parvenu Paul hustles them.
So when characters come out with long and vacuous speeches about decency, art and human dignity, it all sounds pretty cheesy. The speakers, especially Ouisa, are so compromised that their pronouncements come across as hypocrisy -- that is, the homage that vice pays to virtue.
Nonetheless, Hsieh's 20 cast members have some bright moments. Joseph Mascorella as Paul contrasts slutty craftiness with slick refinement. As Ouisa, Eloisa Cardona conveys a tiny bit of decency, or at least a longing for decency, that peeks through heavy layers of polished cynicism.
Re-Act's "Six Degrees of Separation" plays at the Richard Hugo House, 1634 11th Ave., through July 30. Tickets: $12 and $15, students and seniors $9, theater artists $6, discounts for groups of 10 or more, $1 discount with contribution to food bank, pay what you can at 2 p.m. performance July 15; 206-364-3283 or www.reacttheatre.org.
'Apple' / 'Ritchie' Two one-acts by Louie Otter are playing at Theatre 4. Both are about homophobia. One involves arson and an atrocious assault with scissors. The other involves murder. Both are sketchy. Neither is engaging.
In "Apples on the Flood," Bob and Francine bicker. She is sarcastic and aloof. He is teasing and horny. She lies. He spies. She is reproachful. He is supplicatory. She very much admires her gay friend Kyle, who really understands and (in an emotional way) supports her dream of becoming a diva chanteuse. He very much does not admire Kyle.
Things go badly. Then they get worse.
Sophia Tolentino as Francine quickly goes into sarcastic aggrieved mode and gets stuck there. As Bob, Joel Nicholas gives himself a little more latitude -- his range includes both peeved and cajoling. The couple's whole enterprise, however, has a doomed quality from start to finish.
"A Better House for Ritchie" has a little more flex to it. Ritchie, a college teacher, hates hate. He can't stand one more minute of it. He punches out a blathering, sanctimonious homophobe. Peter, his partner, devises a plan to improve their lives. The plan is stillborn.
David Marquardt as Peter and Nicholas as Ritchie grapple determinedly with skimpy material. What little dramatic tension they generate, however, is slack. Their dialogue is aimless. Their fate is arbitrary.
Theatre 4 is on the fourth floor of the Center House, Seattle Center. The one-acts run there through July 15. Tickets: $10, students $8; revlouieotter@yahoo.com.
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