A few years ago, America’s misadventures in Iraq were a familiar dramatic subject, on stage and screen. Then, American involvement in that particular war began to wind down, movies about the subject tanked at the box office, and fewer Iraq-related plays appeared.

Now, suddenly the subject is back. In film, of course, The Hurt Locker recently won Oscars and critics’ honors. On stages, the American-Iraqi morass is once again a popular topic.

Last weekend, I saw the premiere productions of Howard Korder’s In a Garden at South Coast Repertory and Shem Bitterman’s Influence at the Skylight, plus the West Coast premiere of Brett Neveu’s Old Glory at the Victory. Meanwhile, Tony Pasqualini’s Loyalties at Pacific Resident Theatre has extended through April.

These plays approach the U.S.-Iraqi arena from drastically different directions, stylistically if not politically.

Mark Harelik and Matt Letscher, In the Garden. Photo by Henry DiRocco.

Korder’s play is easily the most accomplished of this group. Within its microcosmic perspective, In a Garden is one of the best plays on the subject.  Although its setting is the fictional Middle Eastern country of Aqaat, it’s actually a thinly veiled distillation of several decades of U.S.-Iraqi relations, as seen through the relationship of a young American architect (Matt Letscher) and the Aqaati Minister of Culture (Mark Harelik) who would like the architect to design a summerhouse for his Ministry’s use.

The Minister, a former student in the U.S., is proficient in his accented English and appears to be well aware of certain aspects of American culture – particularly movies and buildings. The American isn’t nearly as well-schooled in Aqaati culture. Years go by, while the negotiating continues, but the American doesn’t realize the cost of his ignorance – and his arrogance – until it’s too late.

The final scene of the play, in which the American military has set up camp in what used to be the Ministry of Culture, is rich with bitter ironies. Korder and director David Warren realize that no underlining is necessary. The script is a model of how to gracefully convert an interaction between human beings (including a couple of appearances by Jarion Monroe as the Aqaati dictator and his double) into a metaphor for larger issues.

The production demonstrates the value of a theater’s decades-long relationship with a playwright.  Korder’s Boys’ Life was the first script in the company’s NewSCRipts readings series in 1985. His Search and Destroy, the first production at South Coast in the ’90s (with a cast led by Harelik and Monroe), was a sensational success. Then his The Hollow Lands, in 2000, was a big disappointment. But he has now rebounded in a new decade with an exquisite smaller play.

While In a Garden is about an American architect in a country like Iraq, Influence is in part about the primary American architect of the Iraq War, or so he’s described in the play. Bitterman is writing about the neo-con Paul Wolfowitz, although the man isn’t mentioned by name. The play is set in 2006, after Wolfowitz (Alan Rosenberg) had already done his bit to start the Iraq War and had then taken over the presidency of the World Bank. Bitterman hasn’t invented another name for him, as Korder did for Iraq. Instead, the character is simply called “The Director” (perhaps calling him “The President” would have been confusing).

This is billed as the third play in Bitterman’s Iraq trilogy, after Man.Gov and Harm’s Way.  In Influence, one of the Director’s goals is to re-establish the World Bank’s office in Iraq, where bank employees had been killed. However, as in the earlier two plays, most of Influence is set in Washington.

In fact, the play is more about Beltway gamesmanship and compromises than it is about any specific issues. And Wolfowitz isn’t even the primary character. Instead Bitterman focuses on a young, engaged couple. Branden (Ian Lockhart) is a World Bank newcomer who is recruited by Wolfowitz and his secretary (Robert Cicchini) to do some of their dirty work, including writing a report on the need for the Iraq office. Sally (Kate Siegel) is a leftie activist who promotes Third World micro-loans.

Implausibly, Branden is also foisted into the position of writing a report investigating the Director’s probably compromising relationship with an Arab woman (Cameron Meyer) who formerly worked for the bank and now runs a foundation that might be persuaded to finance Sally’s pet cause. This character was inspired by the real-life Shaha Riza, whose relationship with Wolfowitz eventually led to his ouster from the bank.

Bitterman’s concerns feel distant from the devastation of the war. So Influence isn’t as compelling as the first two plays in the trilogy, which dealt with an inspector of Iraqi arms (Man.Gov) and an Army prosecutor of soldiers accused of killing Iraqi civilians (Harm’s Way). However, Influence shares a flaw also found in those plays – a salacious undercurrent that appears designed to “sex up” otherwise dry subject matter (I borrow the phrase from a British description of efforts to sell the war to the public).

For example, when Sally refers in passing to Bill Clinton, Branden suggests – out of the blue – that the two of them might want to try “the whole cigar thing” that Clinton and Monica Lewinsky made famous. “Don’t be gross,” Sally replies, even though she has just uttered references to even grosser images, about other subjects.

The older characters also join in strained attempts to make internecine maneuvering at the World Bank sound more exciting. Although Steve Zuckerman’s staging achieves a certain breathless proficiency, it never quite passes the “exciting” threshold.

James Messenger and Jarrett Sleeper in OLD GLORY

Brett Neveu’s Old Glory isn’t exactly exciting, either, but it’s certainly absorbing. Neveu demonstrates zero interest in pandering to any desire to make his unsettling play anything other than bleak.

The stage is divided, somewhat awkwardly at the small Victory, into three sets. In the center is a barracks in Iraq, where two American soldiers (Jarrett Sleeper, James Messenger) take a break from the frightening landscape outside their room by frightening or alienating each other, fueled by the local amphetamine-laced moonshine.  On stage right, the mother (Kathy Bailey) of one of these soldiers talks to one of her slain son’s friends (Chris Allen) from Iraq, back home in New Mexico. On stage left, the same soldier’s father (Pete Gardner) confronts his dead son’s commanding officer (Tom Ormeny) at a German bar.

For most of the play, the audience isn’t sure which of the young men was killed. Their nicknames in the Iraq scenes disguise any connections to the parents we see in the other scenes. This device not only keeps us alert for clues but also emphasizes the sense of disconnection between the war and the home front. It expands our sympathy for both of the young men, as they turn from the hell outside the barracks to another kind of inner hell.

If you go to Old Glory, note the dates in the program listed under “Time” – they correspond, in sequence, to the locations listed under “Place.”  Without having taken that step in advance, my own sense of the time frame was unnecessarily confused as I watched the play.

Like Korder, Neveu writes dialogue that sometimes sounds indirect, challenging us to figure out what’s really happening. This permits a colloquial lyricism that goes beyond the kind of aren’t-we-naughty chatter encountered in Influence.

Like Bitterman’s play, Old Glory is actually the third in a trilogy about the war. L.A. hasn’t seen the first two, although I have seen three of Neveu’s other plays in small L.A. theaters.  Most of his work premiered in Chicago, but he moved to L.A. not long ago. Despite the problems related to the size of the Victory stage, director Carri Sullens clearly knows how to create a sense of raw authenticity in the performances. Maybe it’s time for Neveu to consider opening some of his plays in L.A.

In a Garden, South Coast Repertory, Argyros Stage, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Tues-Fri 7:45 pm; Sat-Sun 2 and 7:45 pm. Closes March 28. 714-708-5555. www.scr.org.

Influence, Katselas Theatre Company at the Skylight Theatre, 1816 Vermont Ave., Los Feliz. Fri-Sat 8pm, Sun 7 pm. Closes April 4. 310-358-9936. www.katselastheatre.org.

Old Glory, Victory Theatre, 3326 W. Victory Blvd., Burbank. Fri-Sat, 8 pm; Sun 4 pm. Closes April 25. 818-841-5421. www.thevictorytheatrecenter.org.