ABSINTHE, OPIUM, AND MAGIC; GAY APPAREL: A CHRISTMAS CAROL, THE HOUSE OF BESARAB

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Comments (0) By L.A. Weekly Theater Critics Wednesday, Dec 9 2009

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STATED INCOME If there’s any truth to the old apothegm about a good actor’s ability to wring a compelling performance out of the telephone book, director Mark Blanchard and his gifted ensemble certainly prove it in this premiere of playwright Hugh Gross’ fatally insipid recession comedy. Times are tough for real estate loan broker Mel Malt (Sal Landi) in the wake of the subprime-mortgage fiasco. His relationship with his girlfriend, Irene (Michelle Laurent), is on the rocks; his cash-strapped daughter (Laurent) is threatening to take his grandchild (the double-cast Carmen and Rowan Blanchard) off to cheaper pastures; and his banker (Orien Richman) is hounding him for the back payments on the home-improvement loan he took out to float his foundering business. Potential salvation arrives in the form of Stuart Dolittle (the charismatic Michael Malota), an ambitious and ethically ambivalent young intern, who proposes that if they can’t earn commissions by getting loans for their fiscally deadbeat clientele, they can use the confidential income information on their loan applications to rat out customers to the IRS for a percentage of any unpaid taxes. While the improbable scheme ultimately pays off, little else does in a disjointed, threadbare narrative beset by too much pedestrian dialogue and too many underdeveloped relationships. The cast takes up some of the slack with memorably screwball character vignettes (including Richman and Kasia Wolejnio’s wicked take on a pair of bickering, Armenian nouveau riche) and director Blanchard eases the pain with a breakneck, Howard Hawks–ian pace. Pan Andreas Theater, 5125 Melrose Ave., L.A.; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m.; through December 20. (323) 960-7788, statedincome-theplay.com. Presented by Actorhood. (Bill Raden)

GO THREE TALL WOMEN In a 2005 interview given to the Academy of Achievement, Edward Albee asked: “What could be worse than getting to the end of your life and realizing you hadn’t lived it?” The words are eerily apropos when considering this haunting theatrical meditation of life unfulfilled, and looming death, which garnered Albee his third Pulitzer in 1994. In the opening tableau, we first see a senile, elderly woman simply known as A (a virtuosic turn by Eve Sigall), who is either “91 or 92,” seated in her bedroom in the company of a youthful, nattily dressed woman B (Jan Sheldrick) and A’s middle-aged caregiver C (Leah Myette). The dialogue is brisk, chatty, often loud and angry, often humorous, and laced with colorful, sometimes dark reminiscences that subtly hint at the connection they share. It is early on in Act 2 when we learn that these three females are actually one person seen at differing stages in life — cross sections of one soul. The conceit allows them access to each other as familiars and strangers, incapable of fully grasping the person that they became, torn between joy, guilt and regret, while awaiting the inevitable approach of death, the “getting to the end of it,” as A sadly muses at play’s end. Michael Matthews, in addition to drawing stellar performances from his cast, directs this production with redoubtable subtlety. Kurt Boetcher’s expressionist “exploded” bedroom set adds a perfect touch. Rounding out the cast is Michael Geniac. El Centro Theater, A West Coast Ensemble production. 845 N. El Centro Ave., Hollywood; Thur- Sat, 8 p.m., Sun. 3 p.m.; through December 20 (323) 460-4443. (Lovell Estell III)

Mark Bennington

Absinthe Opium & Magic

Courtesy of Blank Theatre Company

Santaland Diaries

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WACADEMIA Joe Camhi’s satire of political correctness in academia has a buzz saw to grind, then uses one to make its points about tyranny in the university, based on the author’s own experience. In a scene that’s like a remake of Oleanna — as though David Mamet’s play hadn’t sufficiently made its point — professor/standup comedian Dr. Mark Michaels (Nick Huff), makes an “inappropriate” joke in class, offending the dimmest damsel in distress you’re ever likely to meet (Sara Mcanarney-Reed). She brings charges against the prof, and we see him tried in kangaroo court before a committee of idiots, led by femi-Nazi Dr. Deborah (Wednesday Hobson). Don’t quite know why such an inquisition played as farce ceases to amuse or persuade. Michaels is summarily dismissed, which is supposed to be a bad thing, but I can’t say I felt the heavy weight of oppression, given the dreary quality of his lectures we saw. It is unfair that he was fired for telling jokes in class. He should really have been dismissed for his lack of comic timing. That’s all in Act 2. Let’s back up for a moment into Act 1, which consists of a series of scenes between an elder Mafioso named Jimmy (Camhi) recovering from a stab wound to the stomach. On orders from the Godfather (Ggreg Snyder), Jimmy’s son Angelo (Chriss Nicholas) must help his dad during his recovery. Through their comedic banter, we understand how tough-guy Angelo has been influenced by his college professor wife, Dr. Deborah — the same Dr. Deborah who leads the inquisition against Dr Michaels in Act 2. Angelo questions his father’s stream of racist, sexist slurs with references to “The Feminimine Misspeak” and “megaculturalism.” In that first act lie the seeds of pretty good comedy, were Deborah to actually show up and move things beyond one joke. Alas, it implodes in Act 2 (intended as a separate one-act), when Deborah does show up at her university setting. Act 3 , in the couple’s bedroom, is a taut stand-alone one-act in which we see Deborah’s droll response to her hubby’s infidelity. But as a wrap-up to the plays before, it’s too late to salvage the twisted steel. The leading actors are quite good, and the play gets a nice push from director Rod Oden, staging Act 1 as a boxing match with a squeaky-voiced Ring Girl (Amanda Carr) — who knows exactly what game she’s playing — sashaying across the stage between scenes in a bikini, bearing placards announcing what’s going on. She is, in fact, the show’s highlight, with a humor and spontaneity that the rest of the production desperately needs. Actor’s Playpen, 1514 N. Gardner St., L.A.; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; through December 19. (323) 874-1733. (Steven Leigh Morris)