★★

When: 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sundays, through March 26.

Where: Kirk Douglas Theatre, 9820 Washington Blvd., Culver City.

Tickets: $25-$70.

Length: 1 hr., 40 mins., no intermission.

Suitability: Mature teens and adults for language and subject matter.

Information: 213-628-2772, http://www.centertheatregroup.org.

Our pasts cannot be changed. We can try to relive them, but in reality all we store in our memories is our reactions to them.

These ideas thread through Good Grief, a psychological, mythological, archetypal and still utterly affectionate and charming work by Ngozi Anyanwu in its world premiere at Culver Citys Kirk Douglas Theatre through March 26.

Set in a Pennsylvania suburb, the play centers on Nkechi, a young first-generation Nigerian-American. Though primed to live her immigrant parents idea of the American dream, she has dropped out of medical school. She says it didnt suit her, but in reality she is grieving for the love of her life killed in a car crash and for her lost youth and happy moments that are now mere memories.

The playwright plays Nkechi. Instead of venting too-personal traumas, however, the writer-actor gives us a thoroughly universal picture of growing pains and a wonderfully specific picture of an exceedingly bright, perceptive, funny girl who thinks no one understands her.

The enchanting Nkechi is surrounded by totally relatable characters, played by a flawless casts. On opening night, they won giggles, groans, cheers and sighs as the various characters wafted through Nkechis recalled life.

First in importance to Nkechi are the boys she liked. Her dream boy is Jimmy Deering (Mark Jude Sullivan), for whom she spent her adolescence pining. But her best friend, possible romantic interest and likely soon-to-be lover is Matthew (Wade Allain-Marcus). He, to his endearing credit, has loved Nkechi since the moment he met her, in their grade-school homeroom.

Gods and godlike archetypes watch over and help recount her story. Nkechis mother (Omoze Idehenre) is the intellect, a psychiatric-nursing student with clipboard in hand, objectively observing how Nkechi processes grief. Meanwhile, other mothers (Carla Renata) overreact in exaggerated emotions, including a World Wrestling Entertainmentstyle bout in Ahmed Bests fight choreography.

Nkechis brother (Marcus Henderson) is the jester, likewise trying to usher the grieving process along. Hilariously, his coping mechanisms are marijuana, booze and 1990s rap. Papa (Dayo Ade) is the pragmatist, sternly but lovingly urging Nkechi to just move on.

This is a memory play, not a straightforward chronology. Its fragments of recollections, or perhaps dreams, are carefully sorted out by director Patricia McGregor. She also adds much humor, none of it mean, most of it universal.

The 1990s references pile up as Nkechi recalls her youth. Sound designer Adam Phalen ensures that the soundtrack of Nkechis life seems to come from the tiny radios onstage, though audiences unfamiliar with the songs might have trouble hearing the lyrics.

But the fact that gossip and reputations fill our minds, sometimes barring us from getting to know the person, is unfortunately timeless.

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The scenes take place in and around Matthews bedroom and Nkechis. Theyre designed, by Stephanie Kerley Schwartz, with white LED lights that outline the homes as if a child drew them, constructed on moving platforms so that the scenery swiftly swings into place. The area between the houses becomes a wrestling ring, a road on which Papa urges his shell-shocked daughter to learn to drive, and the living room where Papa shouts at the Eagles from his armchair.

Nkechi dropped out of her Philadelphia med school. Perhaps her imagination was too vivid to allow her to focus on such objective studies. Or, perhaps all of us seek solace in imagination and memory when our souls are taxed by death and disappointments.

Whatever the case, Nkechi would make a great medical doctor, the type who takes the whole person into consideration in her diagnoses and who clearly explains causes and effects to the patient. On the other hand, that also describes a great playwright.

Dany Margolies is a Los Angeles-based writer.

Rating: 4 stars.

When: 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sundays, through March 26.

Where: Kirk Douglas Theatre, 9820 Washington Blvd., Culver City.

Tickets: $25-$70.

Length: 1 hr., 40 mins., no intermission.

Suitability: Mature teens and adults for language and subject matter.

Information: 213-628-2772, http://www.centertheatregroup.org.

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'Good Grief' is a funny, poignant meditation on memory at Kirk ... - LA Daily News