DUO'S PERFORMANCES TOO STRONG IN 'TIMES LIKE THESE'.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

JOHN O'KEEFE'S ``Times Like These'' opens with an actress holding a bouquet of flowers after a performance and her exultant husband kneeling at her feet, madly applauding. Husband and wife, both actors, are alone in their apartment, and apparently those inauspicious rooms are as able a stomping ground as any auditorium in fascist Germany.

Meta Wolff (played by Laurie O'Brien), a Jew, soon will be forced from the stage and end up all but trapped in that apartment. Her non-Jewish husband, Oskar Weiss, (Norbert Weisser) will tread the boards in his wife's absence, essentially channeling her rage into a subversive production of Shakespeare's ``Hamlet.'' Given their passion for their craft - and for each other - it's a wonder this duo even needs an audience.

Inspired by the real-life story of Meta Wolff and her film star husband, Joachim Gottschalk, ``Times Like These'' begins at a fever pitch and never really levels out. The production, which O'Keefe first directed for Padua Playwrights, feels like a mishmash of desperate romance and political theorizing rather than a comfortable blend of the two. O'Brien's from-the-rafters performance doesn't help matters. The character needs to be defined by more than her passion if the play is to succeed.

It's not exactly a substantial leap from Meta the triumphant to Meta as artistic pariah. O'Keefe has Meta informing her husband that she's a Jew (are we to believe he didn't know when he married her?) and gradually sinking into fear as her safety becomes increasingly threatened. The less-talented Oskar, meanwhile, returns to the stage and essentially picks up where Meta left off. When he puts on a Gestapo uniform to play Hamlet, Meta shakes off his touch.

The love story is certainly credible in this two-character play, largely because O'Brien and Weisser develop a successful but twisted chemistry. It's easy to accept that Meta and Oskar (why, I wonder, did O'Keefe change Gottschalk's name but not Wolff's?) are never completely at ease when they're not in performance. At one point, Meta ``coaches'' Oskar through a sadomasochistic rendering of Hamlet's ``get thee to a nunnery'' scene with Ophelia. They play it out, then they get it on.

O'Brien, as previously noted, seems to be attacking the role of Meta rather than embracing it. It's an emotion-soaked, slightly messy performance that peaks early and has nowhere to go. Weisser begins things more sedately, but by Act 2, he's getting overindulgent as well.

O'Keefe, as director, might have pulled both actors back. He might also rethink the abrupt stagy blackouts that conclude each scene and consider eliminating the play's intermission to preserve dramatic tension. All the world may be a stage for Meta and Oskar, but it would be nice to have a better understanding of why these two can't stop performing.

TIMES LIKE THESE - Two and one half stars

Where: Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., L.A.

When: 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays; through Feb. 23.

Tickets: $20.50 to $25. [phone].

In a nutshell: An over-acted, slightly twisted love story in the shadow of the Third Reich.