A TRULY MAGICAL STAGING OF `THE ARABIAN NIGHTS'.

Byline: Reed Johnson Daily News Staff Writer

We tell ourselves stories in order to live, Joan Didion once wrote.

Or was it Scheherazade?

For centuries, the world has known of the wily bride Scheherazade, who kept from losing her head by regaling her husband, the cruel King Shahryar, with 300 fantastic tales over 1,001 magical nights.

Yet it's doubtful those tales ever have been told with more beauty, intensity or intelligence than in ``The Arabian Nights,'' Mary Zimmerman's 1992 adaptation for Chicago's Lookingglass Theatre, which is being revived through Oct. 19 at the Actors' Gang Theater in Hollywood. Lookingglass founding member David Schwimmer of TV's ``Friends'' is co-producing the show and occasionally stepping in as the king.

Sensuous, bawdy, lyrical and acrobatic, ``Arabian Nights'' turns ancient folklore into a three-ring circus of pure theatrical pleasures. From the moment the ensemble of 17 actors marches out, beating drums, shaking gourds and leaping through space, the audience is drawn into a realm of imaginative perception that grows almost hypnotic as the evening glides on. Like the mesmerized king, we find ourselves yearning for just one more story to forestall the inevitable end.

``Arabian Nights,'' then, is about gratification: physical and spiritual, oral and aural, deferred and consummated. It's also about betrayal, revenge, the joys of the spoken word and the fickleness of fate. The morals of most of these parables are luminously self-evident, but their overarching theme is: be humble and trust in almighty Allah.

In the opening tale, for instance, a proud merchant spurns a young woman's advances and lives to regret it hugely (and comically). In another, a haughty nobleman reaps lifelong humiliation after setting a world's record in wind-breaking. Fluidly and often brilliantly staged by Zimmerman, the production's style alternates between a sublime poeticism (enhanced by T.J. Gerkens' sensuous lighting design) and a mock-epic, scatological vaudeville. Daniel Ostling's set of throw pillows, lanterns and red damask curtains peels back to reveal a starry fairy-tale nightscape that underlines the production's metaphorical richness. Call it the Chic of Araby.

While a dozen mini-dramas unfold before his eyes and ours, King Shahryar (Adam Dannheisser) sits scowling in the background, sometimes interacting with the performers or complaining to Scheherazade (Naama Potok) if something displeases him. Thus, at one level, ``Arabian Nights'' is about a monarch's personal odyssey from tyranny to enlightenment, represented by the wise and dashing figure of Harun al-Rashid (Philip Rayburn Smith), a real-life ruler of eighth-century Baghdad who pops up in several tales.

Some stories, such as the one about a woman's slapstick extramarital trysts, begat other stories, which in turn begat yet other stories. The narrative passes continuously from mouth to mouth, actor to actor. All this makes incredible demands on the cast who, at the drop of a fez, have to sing, dance, mime, mug, play instruments, turn somersaults and impersonate various beasts of burden (and bloody well, too). Lookingglass is the essence of an ensemble company, with multitalented individual performers who collectively are more than the sum of their parts.

Composed in the Gulf War's melancholy afterglow, ``Arabian Nights'' recognizes the fleetingness of cultural superiority and the wayward course of empire. ``Count on a Kurd for a list like that,'' a character remarks tartly in one sketch. Perhaps the most moving story involves a precocious young woman named Sympathy (Laura Eason), who trumps Harun al-Rashid's wise men with her prodigious display of knowledge, including a chirpy recitation of the contents of the Koran.

It's hard to imagine a better introduction to live theater for any young person - though best not too young. Come to think of it, it's hard to imagine a better introduction for any person, young or old, anywhere.

THE FACTS

What: ``The Arabian Nights.''

Where: The Actors' Gang Theater, 6207 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood.

When: 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday; through Oct. 19.

Tickets: $20. Call [phone].

Our rating: Three and One Half Stars.

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Photo

Photo: Joy Gregory as Perfect Love in ``The Arabian Nights'' at the Actors' Gang Theater.