‘Twilight Zone’ Is Dark, Weird and Fun  By Kyle Moore The glowing light of the post-WWII era – when America’s optimism and confidence was not only hard-earned but fully justified – cast as its shadows the Beat generation; hard jazz, and a growing fascination with science fiction. Stepping out of those shadows each week in the new medium of television was the now-iconic Rod Serling, with a distinctive delivery and a series of black-and-white morality tales fueled by America’s growing paranoia about communism and flying saucers. Like the distant godchild of O. Henry and Edgar Allen Poe, Serling’s “Twilight Zone” put a distinctive stamp on our collective imagination and provided us with the perfect soundtrack for eerie irony. A theatrical staging of Serling’s scripts would seem long overdue, and 4-Letter Productions eagerly tackles the job with an after-hours double-bill at Theatre West. The first, “The Four of Us Are Dying,” concerns a chameleonic con man. Clever use of multiple actors (including Erik Adams, channeling Christian Slater doing Jack Nicholson) and nimble staging make for an amusing take on an otherwise lightweight noir script. The second, “Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?,” strands a busload of passengers in a snowbound diner with at least one alien among them. Paca Thomas’ sound design does brilliant work of crash-landing an alien spacecraft into a frozen lake. Solid performances abound here, and the two episodes make for a tasty late-night snack. Those of us who haven’t already TiVoed the entire series can only hope that 4-Letter Productions will continue to mine the prolific Serling’s dark imagination. “The Twilight Zone – Live on Stage” is playing at Theatre West, 3333 Cahuenga Blvd., across from Universal. Fridays and Saturdays at 11 p.m. through Nov. 19. $10. For reservations (818) 872-3383.