Theater Reviews: The Bad Arm — Confessions of a Dodgy Irish Dancer, Alley Cat and Some Kind of Love Story

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GO  ALLEY CAT Marnie Olson plays voluptuous Carma in her play (co-written with director Caroline Marshall) about a female sex addict trying to fathom the depths of her self-destructive compulsions, and whether they’re part of some desire for, or resistance to, intimacy. She relishes her power over men, she explains to her skeptical therapist (Elisabeth Blake, who also turns in an affecting cameo as the understandably troubled, newly pregnant wife of Carma’s musician boyfriend, Rocky (Tui Ho Chee). The production straddles the line between comedic drama and soap opera, but it’s salvaged largely by the delicate performances of the entire ensemble, the truthfulness of which passes the severe test of playing in a venue the size of a living room. Excellent portrayals also include Michael Patrick McCaffrey’s petty thief/“recovering” coke addict/new-age bookstore clerk, clearly missing some major brain circuitry, and Suzie Kane’s Gypsy card reader, Wanda — “Money up front, in the Buddha please.” Though Olson and Marshall’s script hovers dangerously close to being trite, it avoids that plunge with the buoyancy of its intelligence and humor. As an actor, Olson probes the crisis of her intimacies and loneliness with such a deft mixture of deflective mockery and inner torment, her struggles take on the universal qualities of a culture plagued by addictions and despair. The larger question — why are we all so alone? — comes blazing from the stage with blanching heat, and that temperature is this comedy’s higher purpose. Psychic Visions Theater, 3447 Motor Ave., West L.A.; Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m.; through Aug. 31. (310) 535-6007. Roadkill Productions (Steven Leigh Morris)

GO  THE BAD ARM — CONFESSIONS OF A DODGY IRISH DANCER Máire Clerkin comes from Irish stock and grew up in London. This blend might explain her satirically grim portrait of the world she grew up in, and the cheerfully British mask she places over it. In some ways, Clerkin’s one-woman show is a study in the loneliness of being ignored by her workaholic dance-teacher mother, who focused all her attention on the paying customers. This child’s-eye view could be peevish stuff were Clerkin not so intractably good-humored. Nor does she place herself above her mocking portraits, including at age 14 a groping suitor in the dance hall, his eyes boggling, tongue swishing lips as he grabs her hips at arm’s length and pushes her around the dance floor like a mop. “Hot in here,” he notes. “What do you say we step outside for some fresh air?” “That sounds like a good idea,” she chirps back with wide-eyed innocence, and with a politeness that forms the outer crust of British civility. Aside from her animated impersonations and snapshot transitions between them, the focal point of Clerkin’s coming-of-age saga is her right elbow, that drifts outward while performing Irish folk dances, a “bad arm” that her mother says is responsible for her placing poorly in so many competitions. The requisite of keeping both arms slammed into one’s body emerges as a metaphoric constriction in a world that Clerkin captures so meticulously, with the help of Dan O’Connor’s direction and Maxine Mohr’s pristinely delicate sound design. Intro to snogging (French kissing) is one of many rites of passage detailed by Clerkin with a blend of intrigue and disgust, as is binge-drinking and the morning-after consequences in one high-stakes public display. Clerkin’s glorious riffs of traditional Irish dance and disco, and some intermingling of both genres, make her argument for transcendence with nary a word spoken. Bang Theatre, 457 N. Fairfax Ave., L.A.; Sun., Aug. 31, Sun., Sept. 7 & Thurs., Sept. 11 & 18, 8 p.m. (323) 653-6886. (Steven Leigh Morris)

THE DIVINE MADNESS OF ISABELLA One-person shows often deal in household names (i.e., Harry Truman, Samuel Clemens, Eleanor Roosevelt). That way, the audience can meet the performer halfway between official history and a living, breathing interpretation of a hallowed cultural monument. But playwright-performer Wendy Gough is having none of that. Her subject is the all but obscure Isabella Andreini. Gough tells us that Andreini was a renowned 16th-century Italian scholar, poet and actress credited with raising the nascent commedia dell’arte from a low burlesque into the expressive art form that certain university professors and Italian buffs celebrate today. Trouble is, Gough spends so much time relating the history of Isabella and commedia that her play becomes bogged down in a quagmire of drama-smothering exposition. Among the casualties is Gough’s real objective — the tightrope journey of the artist from the safe and rational to the grand inspiration found only at the edge of insanity. Gough’s use of commedia elements in her storytelling proves her an accomplished mask maker, a wry puppeteer, a capable historian and an earnest performer. Unfortunately, artist biographies come with their own Catch-22: The talents onstage must be equal to the artist they’re portraying. Director John Achorn’s insipid stage compositions and Gough’s ultimate failure to transmute lifeless documentary fact into compelling dramatic tension are the best evidence that this pair is not. Write Act Theater, 6128 Yucca St., Hollywood; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 4 p.m.; through Aug. 24. (323) 469-3113. (Bill Raden)