Sister Acts

At least this weekend, where two very different theatrical presentations, in two very different settings, focus on women confronting — and confounding — societal expectations.

At the College of Southern Nevada, “Gum” and “The Mother of Modern Censorship” — a pair of one-acts by contemporary playwright Karen Hartman — take place in an unidentified, restrictive Islamic country.

And at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, the Nevada Conservatory Theatre’s production of “The Heiress” — an adaptation of Henry James’ novel “Washington Square,” by Ruth and Augustus Goetz — is set in 1850s New York. It centers on a privileged young woman caught between two men: her tyrannical father and the charming fortune-hunter who hopes to marry her.

The double-bill of “Gum” and “The Mother of All Censorship” definitely qualifies as “provocative,” acknowledges director Sarah O’Connell, a part-time instructor at the college and artistic director of Las Vegas’ Asylum Theatre.

After all, both one-acts deal with sexual politics — in a fictional Middle Eastern country.

An incident in Egypt (where a young woman, rumored to be sexually active, was stoned) sparked “Gum,” O’Connell notes, “but we definitely took our inspiration from modern Iran.”

College officials chose Hartman’s one-acts “as a reaction to the news about the Islamic world,” she explains. “We wage war on them but we don’t want to know about their daily lives.”

The one-acts serve as companion pieces.

“Gum,” described by its publisher as a “violent fairy tale,” focuses on a pair of cloistered sisters (played by Stefanie McCue and Maria May) who explore their budding sexuality — and suffer the consequences.

Befitting its provocative subject matter, the production includes partial nudity, but “it’s not about the nudity, it’s about the vulnerability,” O’Connell maintains.

“The Mother of Modern Censorship’s” tone is decidedly more comedic, focusing on the music censorship headquarters of the fictional fundamentalist country, where the chief censor (Kate Lowenhar) and her loyal assistant (Christine de Chavez) must prove their worthiness as smut screeners.

While “Gum” stands as “a more poetic and intense piece that drives a powerful message home,” O’Connell says, its one-act companion qualifies as a “more political comedy,” where “it’s easy to laugh at the idiocy of government.”

Throughout, nontraditional casting featuring “a wide range of ethnicities” emphasizes that “this isn’t about any one woman in any one country,” the director says. “It’s about their relationships — about how they get each other through.”

As for Nevada Conservatory Theatre’s “The Heiress,” its 19th-century setting in no way interferes with audiences feeling for, and with, the title character, says director Sarah Norris, a third-year graduate student who’s directing the play as her master’s thesis.

“This is a sheltered person and she finds herself,” Norris says of the play’s title character. “By the end, she makes very strong choices.”

Then again, she has to.

Shy and awkward, Catherine Sloper (played by Chelsea Brim) has lived her entire circumscribed life with her caustic father (Joe Hammond), a domineering physician who has never quite recovered from the loss of his beloved wife, who died giving birth to Catherine.

As a result, “he could never truly love” his daughter, Norris explains, and “holds that resentment” of her — even when handsome Morris Townsend (Ryan Fonville) comes calling.

Ah, but does Morris love Catherine for herself — or for her money?

The intimacy of UNLV’s Black Box Theatre adds to the drama’s intensity, Norris says.

“Some of those scenes are so full of emotion,” the director says, that it’s almost as if the audience is in the front parlor of the Sloper home on Washington Square, watching the drama unfold as it builds to Catherine’s final revenge.

In conjunction with “Gum” and “The Mother of Modern Censorship,” Britain’s Andrew McKinnon, an expert in Middle Eastern and international theater, will visit CSN’s BackStage Theatre at 11 a.m. Wednesday. His appearance, sponsored by the Asylum Theatre, is open to the public.

Contact reporter Carol Cling at ccling@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0272.