"The Water Engine" and "Mr. Happiness," The Garage Theatre, Long Beach, CA

The Garage Theatre’s production of David Mamet’s The Water Engine and Mr. Happiness (two plays), directed by Jamie Sweet, are good productions of not-so-good material.

The moral behind The Water Engine is a good one. Scientific progress, yes, capitalist ethics, no. It resounds today. Especially today.

The characters, ditto, if a little cartoonish.

It’s 1934. Though the Chicago World’s Fair heralds progress, a Greek chorus cacophony of voices – exhortations not to break a chain letter, biddy gossip about what Charles Lindberg did to his son’s killer moments before his execution, socialist proclamations of the evils of democracy – undermine this heady optimism.

Charles Lang (Cliff Threadgold), a young inventor who toils in a factory by day, creates the prototype of an engine that runs on water. He’s a wholesome guy. He’s chummy with his sister, Rita (Rachel Potucek). He wants a better life for the two of them.

Nothing unusual there.

He goes to slime bag attorney Lawrence Oberman (Joe Arrigoni) to patent the device.

Big mistake.

Things become surreal. Oberman teams with Morton Gross (Dennis Hoffman), another lawyer, another thug.

Naïve, not a little paranoid, Lang’s fears become well-founded. Broken contracts, physical threats, legal haranguing, and kidnapping.

And a wrenching ending that erases any happy days are here again songs you might want to sing.

So far, so good.

Threadgold glistens like a Thomas Edison light bulb, practical, not necessarily Einstein brilliant but far, far ahead of his time. He plays him sincere but scared, clueless as to capitalism’s dark side. The sucker.

He gets us to relate to him on three levels: the Cinderella Man of inventors. The epitome of a mirage called the American Dream. And the individual caught in a Kafka maze of greed and treachery.

Amber Green bubbles as Bernie, a kid who represents our unblemished future.

And Arrigoni nails the oleaginous shyster Oberman: a silver tongued devil, an unscrupulous wanker.

The problem is, Mamet stages the story as a visualization of radio drama and dot-dot-dot journalism. Riveting, yes, today-relevant or at least nostalgic, yes.

Skewered however between the Scylla of radio and the Charybdis of cinema, the production died a slow death. It would have worked as an Orson Wellsian War of the World radio broadcast. It would have worked as a film noir. In spite of a few adrenal thuggy moments, some macho strong-arming, some moments of sibling angst, The Water Engine simply ran out of steam.

A curious segue, this undercooked shtick, to the brief and perky Mr. Happiness. The script featured the personable if not charming Mark Frankos, Jimmy Stewart-esque in everything but cornball voice, as a radio show call-in problem-solver. Frankos made the best of material that brimmed with platitudes and panaceas. He’s got stage presence, he’s got charisma. The one thing he didn’t have was a script of substance. Short shrifted for want of script. Sad.

Performances are Thursday - Saturday, 8 PM. The show runs until May 19. Tickets are $12-15. The Theatre is located at 251 E. 7th Street. For more information call 433-8337 or visit www.thegaragetheatre.org.