SIMPLICITY FITS 'PERICLES'.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

The best praise English lit people can usually give Shakespeare's late romance ``Pericles'' (and if you've never heard of it, you're hardly alone) is that it cleared the Bard's gummed-up creative outlet to make plays like ``The Tempest'' possible. Not exactly the greatest recommendation when you're deciding whether to pass an evening in its company.

But the administrators at Glendale's A Noise Within have never taken the easy journey through the classics. In fact, here's betting that if you were to send ANW's top brass a list of so-called ``classics'' that the majority of theater companies in America would brand as tricky or all but undoable, that list would come back with a big fat ``oh yeah?'' scribbled in red ink.

Which leads me back to the company's revival of ``Pericles,'' a work that director Art Manke has somehow bent into better-than-viewable condition. This for a play with too many locations, plotting over-dependent upon miraculous coincidences and a title character who drops out of sight to become a hermit, leaving his squeaky-clean daughter to sustain an audience's interest.

Manke's isn't an ``oh yeah?'' production. There's no gimmickry, no life-infusing concept to give the problematic play new energy. This ``Pericles'' is staged with visual sparseness, with an appreciation for what gorgeous language is present and with a sharp eye toward trimming extraneous fat.

Gone is the character of Gower, a prologue who offers windy scene expositions. Through careful pacing and judicious cutting, Manke brings the story in at a tidy two hours, plot very much intact. And he's got the company's crack acting team on the job to help us through the hokier stretches ... of which there are several.

Pericles (played by Robertson Dean) may be the ruler of Tyre, but he's barely ever there. The play begins with him courting the daughter of the king of Antioch, and then retreating once he solves a riddle and learns that father and daughter are involved in an incestuous affair. Then it's on to Tarsus, where Pericles rids the land of famine, and to Pentapolis, where he marries King Simonides' daughter, Thaisa (Emily Heebner). Their daughter, born at sea, is named Marina.

The play's later acts follow an adult Marina (Julia Coffey) surviving an abduction and doing her best to stay pure after being sold into prostitution in Mytilene. Ultimately, she gets to experience a family reunion.

Manke has some over-the-top fun with the brothel keepers (Mark Bramhall and Michael Nehring), but the production largely plays things straight. Dean brings a square-jawed stoicism to Pericles' grief and hardships, and Anna C. Miller does nice work both as Thaisa's rescuer, Cerimon, and the treacherous Dionyza.

Production-wise, a play this waterlogged doesn't get a lot of soggy effects. Michael C. Smith's largely bare stage occasionally harbors a sweeping floor curtain or a couple of rear portals. Alex Jaeger's costumes veer toward contemporary.

Should ``Pericles'' rejoin the regular repertoire of Shakespeare's plays in regular performance? Probably not. Should A Noise Within's production be seen? Unquestionably.

``PERICLES''

Where: A Noise Within, 234 S. Brand Blvd., Glendale.

When: 8 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday; through Nov. 30. Plays in repertory. Call for specific performance dates.

Tickets: $22 to $38. Call [phone].

Our rating: Three stars

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Photo:

Robertson Dean rises to the title role in Shakespeare's rarely performed ``Pericles,'' with, from left, Megan Goodchild, Richard Soto, Michael Nehring and Mitchell McLean.