Theater Reviews

INCONCEIVABLE! This curious comedy by Tim and Dan Furlong might be called Trials and Tribulations in the Life of Sperm, as they struggle to fight their perilous way to fertilization. It combines farcical treatment with a fairy-tale plot, and a dollop of romantic comedy, equating biological imperatives with romantic love. The characters — sperm and ova — are presented as fully developed humans, albeit desperately naive and uninformed. The sperm, Cap’n and Wiseass (Sean McGowan and Dan Furlong), are sailor boys in navy whites whose arrival in the dangerous land of Eggodonia suggests the storming of the beaches at Normandy. The eggs, independent Ina and flighty Ova (Ashley Schoff and Sirena Irwin), are eager to be fertilized, but clueless. Chastera (Susan Peahl), the high priestess of birth control, has persuaded them that the sperm are yeast infections, and she employs a hormone named Ferizoad (Mark Christopher Tracy) and a host of (offstage) antibodies to fend off the eager lads. It’s a clever concept, but not quite clever enough to sustain its 90-minute length. Director Rick Sparks and his able cast strive mightily to keep the touch light and the action brisk, but they’re hampered by a heavy-handed, sketch-comedy script. Globe Playhouse, 1107 Kings Road, W. Hlywd.; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; thru April 1. (323) 769-5555. (Neal Weaver)

ORANGE FLOWER WATER Brad and Cathy and Beth and David — these aren’t the names of swingin’ city couples but of rural Minnesotans choking on the sameness of small-town life. Playwright Craig Wright’s 85-minute one-act looks at the time just before and after Beth and David’s (Julie Quinn and Robert Poe) adulterous affair is exposed by Beth’s husband, Brad (Tim Sullens). Both Brad and David’s wife, Cathy (Ann Noble), are the ones left behind to pick up the pieces of their lives and to become their children’s main parent. The play is unflinching in its sketch of ordinary people overwhelmed by the most common of social transgressions, and director Carri Sullens’ production — which plays out on and around a bed — is powered by Tim Sullens’ visceral performance as an angry and confused lug. This is a story without the possibility of a happy ending or even sexual revenge, although Wright stumbles by having David deliver a syrupy joys-of-parenting monologue before the show’s final blackout. Victory Theater Center, 3324 W. Victory Blvd., Burbank; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 4 p.m.; thru April 23. (818) 841-5422. (Steven Mikulan)

THE SLEEPER Gretchen’s (Amy Tribbey) son has ADD; her teen daughter, bulimia. Her perky non-reaction to both stereotypical child disorders is par for the course in Catherine Butterfield’s semi-dark comedy, which intentionally lays out a field of clichés (the soccer mom, the red-haired vamp, the workaholic dad) but never quite delves into or deflates what they represent. Not only does this frustrate attempts to examine her characters, but Butterfield tries to use the same Twiggy-thin sketches to explore the societal ramifications of 9/11. See, Gretchen’s just fallen for her son’s math tutor, a handsome, apocryphal college grad (Ray DeJohn) with swarthy skin and a fluency in some foreign tongue or another, which means that in addition to organizing terrorist-alert drills at the middle school and attending neighborhood anthrax-awareness meetings, now the happy homemaker has to worry that she’s sleeping with the enemy. While it’s a nice parallel that the title refers equally to Gretchen’s paramour and her own decades-dormant spirit, the piece is content merely to bat around ideas that demand to be pinned down and eviscerated. Occasionally, Butterfield’s script hints at dimensionality, as when Gretchen questions her own knee-jerk racial suspicions, but too often the material relies on easy maxims of the “We are all different now” variety — and director Andrew Barnicle and his leads aren’t adding any extra heft. Laguna Playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach; Tues.-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2 & 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m.; thru March 19. (949) 497-2787. (Amy Nicholson)

GO WASTE OF SHAME H-Bomb (Kyle Johnston) is a slacker’s slacker. Desperately avoiding gainful employment, he rants dementedly about flying saucers and environmental threats, and sponges off his roommate and former frat brother Chris (Johnny Clark). Chris, too conventional to be an underachiever, has a job, an apartment, a formidable CD collection, and a fiancée. He’s a vicarious slacker, relishing (perhaps envying?) and enabling H-Bomb’s do-nothing life. Chris’ live-in fiancée, Melanie (Kimberly Rose Wolter), seems more interested in their impending $30,000 wedding than in Chris, and she’s hell-bent on persuading him to expel the scruffy, parasitical H-Bomb from their apartment. At first, writer-director Ron Klier’s play seems like a funny, amiable character comedy, till, at the end of Act I, a shocking discovery transforms it into a suspense drama. The discovery, however, is merely a MacGuffin, never explained or referred to again, and the play segues into an existential tragicomedy as bleak as anything in Beckett. Though inventive and brilliantly written, the play’s manipulations leave one feeling faintly hoaxed, and the characters are more exasperating than sympathetic. But the production is wonderful, with sure-footed and precise direction, terrific actors, and a quirkily cluttered set by John G. Williams. VS. Theater Company at Elephant Theater, 6322 Santa Monica Blvd., Hlywd.; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m.; thru April 9. (323) 860-3283. (Neal Weaver)