Theater Reviews: Hollywood Fringe Festival

Comments (0) By L.A. Weekly Theater Critics Thursday, Jun 24 2010

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GO DELILAH DIX AND HER BAG OF TRICKS Part stand-up and part cabaret, this character-driven hour of outrageously maniacal chaos is the brainchild of performer Amy Albert. Delilah, supposedly the elder sister of the Olsen twins, is a foulmouthed, washed-up, celebrity name–dropping, D-level Hollywood wannabe for whom nothing is inappropriate. As her alter ego swigs Scope and rubbing alcohol, Albert demonstrates spot-on comic timing, an obviously well-trained singing instrument, and the ability to roll with whatever happens. Given the wasteland of TV-sketch comedy, here’s hoping her talents are discovered by someone soon. ETC Productions LLC at the Second City Studio Theatre, 6560 Hollywood Blvd., L.A.; Mon., June 21, 7 p.m. (866) 811-4111. (Dink O’Neal/courtesy of Back Stage)

GO ECDYSIS, A DANCE PERFORMANCE Ecdysis means to molt, or shed one's skin. Written by Homa Dashtaki and set to music by composer and musician Solitari, this beguiling dance piece celebrates womanhood as it relays one individual's transition from jejune youth to weathered maturity. The collaborative program consists of seven solo segments, executed by seven dancers, that shift in mood and intensity, from Aling Zhang's blithe opening to Tanya Beatty's final forceful denouement, which embraces everything that's gone before. Dancer Lennon Hobson's movement speaks to aspiration, and Kami Rockett's to defiant self-assertion. Most memorable is Dale Shieh, in a vivid portrayal of erotic yearning and meteoric passion. IDA Hollywood, 6755 Hollywood Blvd. 2nd Floor, Fri., 9:30 p.m.; Sat., 8:30 p.m. hollywoodfringe.org/project/view/222 (Deborah Klugman/L.A. Weekly)

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GO ECO-FRIENDLY JIHAD Irish comedian/social satirist Abie Philbin Bowman is supercasual, but his jokes come thick and fast. With his rapid-fire delivery, wit and taste for paradox, he calls to mind both Swift’s Modest Proposal and Robin Williams’ riffing genie in Aladdin. He observes that while the U.S. delivers its lethal power via huge, expensive transport planes, al-Qaeda operatives carry theirs on foot, so obviously the jihadists create a smaller carbon footprint. Bowman’s material is so rich that occasionally one suffers psychic overload: I sometimes missed joke no. 4 because I was still pondering nos. 1, 2 and 3. Various venues, hollywoodfringe.org/learn/content/247. (Neal Weaver/L.A. Weekly)

ELEVATOR One might expect seven strangers trapped in an elevator for nine hours to begin their ordeal with an attempt at reserved civility and end it tearing out each other’s throats. Not playwright-director Michael Leoni. In the muddled logic of his implausible claustrophobia comedy, the close confines become a de facto confessional, as his initially icy, urban archetypes quickly melt and begin spouting deeply personal truths that would take the average neurotic years to work up to in psychotherapy. Pedestrian dialogue, non sequitur psychology and a slack staging defeat a valiant ensemble in an interminable 90 minutes; the Marx Brothers did it much funnier in less than three. Hudson Guild, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Hlywd.; Fri., 10:30 p.m.; Sat.-Sun., 3 p.m.; through June 27. (866) 811-4111. (Bill Raden/L.A. Weekly)

ESCALATOR HILL Though they’re from Echo Park, this five-piece outfit sounds like the band with a standing Thursday-night summertime gig on the back porch of a fraternity bar in a college town. Violinist Nancy Kuo plays a sweet sadness that curls pleasantly around Ryan Ross’ gospel-tinged piano, and lead singer Tony Benedetti is awfully earnest, if a little tone-deaf. Save for a few glimmering melodies, the show was like a summer fling. You know it happened, but in such a bourbon-soaked, humidity-stoked blur, all you recall is a fine haze. Paul Gleason Theater. CLOSED (Rebecca Haithcoat/L.A. Weekly)

GO EURIPIDES' MEDEA Coups de théâtre abound in this haunting adaptation from wunderkind director Michael Burke and his Indianapolis-based paperStrangers Performance Group. Burke, who also choreographs and designs the show's brilliantly inventive feathered costumes, set pieces, video projections and lighting, pares Euripides' text to its brutal, psychic core. Melissa Fenton's sympathetic Medea is a tour de force of blistering anguish and unbridled rage spilling into infanticidal madness. Kellen York's aloof Jason is the emotionally detached bastard who done her wrong. An eerie, wraithlike chorus externalizes inner demons in ritualistic dance. And Burke's breathtakingly theatrical denouement is not to be missed. Dorie Theater at the Complex, 6476 Santa Monica Blvd., L.A.; Thurs.-Sun., 7 p.m.; through June 27. (866) 811-4111. (Bill Raden/L.A. Weekly)

GO THE EVENT Starting as an objective narration of the relationship between the actor and the audience, this solo show slips quietly from theater and the specific to life and the universal, doing so with dignity but without pretension. Written by John Clancy, directed by Ian Forester and starring the mesmerizing Paul Dillon, this production is destined for the status of a classic — if you tolerate Beckett and the like. Though the character refers to himself as The Man and the audience as The Strangers, he binds us to him as we reverently watch without breathing, fascinated and ultimately awash in emotion. Needtheater at the Paul G. Gleason Theatre, 6520 Hollywood Blvd., L.A.; Thurs.-Sun., June 24-27, 7:30 p.m. (323) 795-2215). (Dany Margolies/courtesy of Back Stage)

FEELING SORRY FOR ROMAN POLANSKI Chicago import Sideway Theater and Taco Dog Productions' production of Sue Cargill's amusing comedy about victims and the people who love them. Amid kitchen banter between a gossipy wife, Myrna (Danielle Finnk), and her forlorn husband, Bink (Michael Whitney), Bink reveals how his energetic performance of singing a telegram in a gorilla suit induced a fatal seizure in the almost-90-year-old recipient of his entertainment. As Bink faces the loss of his job and some guilt, even his own wife starts to subtly blame him. She's incapable of not siding with victims; this includes an impassioned and slightly goofy defense of her favorite director, Roman Polanski, attributing his alleged molestation of a 13-year-old girl to his harrowing upbringing during the Holocaust, and the trauma of the Sharon Tate murders. The droll humor spins in circles for a bit too long under Michael A. Stock's direction, until Bink chooses to visit the deceased woman's nephew (Joel Grady), her only living relative, at her funeral. "I've decided not to sue you or your company," is supposed to be good news from the nephew, leading instead to Bink's questioning the nephew as to why, exactly, he chose to hire a guy in a gorilla suit to deliver a greeting to a woman so obviously frail — a totally reasonable question that shifts responsibility back to where it would belong in a rational world. But Cargill's world, in her intriguing play with competent performances, is far from rational. Theatre Asylum, 6320 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood; through June 27. hollywoodfringe.org/project/view/108 (Steven Leigh Morris/L.A. Weekly)