Theater Reviews: The Hyacinth Macaw, Locked and Loaded, Gigi

Also The Sonneteer, Wrinkles and more

Comments (0) By L.A. Weekly Theater Critics Thursday, Feb 24 2011

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PHOTO BY ED KRIEGER

Gigi

PHOTO BY MICHAEL LAMONT

Wrinkles

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WRINKLES Paul Kikuchi's blithe, slight comedy is a paean to that most unlikely of heroes: the dirty old man. And, really, if the tragedy of King Lear is that of an elderly fellow who "shouldst not have been old til (he) hadst been wise," how much nicer a world it is when a man can be both old and a horndog. Tightly wound lawyer mom Nancy (Amy Hill) finds a bag of sex toys in the garage and mistakenly assumes they belong to her innocent teenage son, Jason (Ki Kong Lee). However, when the toys turn out to belong to Nancy's octogenarian live-in dad, Harry (Sab Shimono), her head starts spinning like the jigger on the Hello Kitty vibrator. It turns out Harry has a burgeoning career in a niche film industry known overseas as "elder porn." And, when Harry turns out to be "huge in Japan," it only means complications for his bemused family. Director Jeff Liu's cheerfully brisk pacing and the cast's engaging comic timing help keep Kikuchi's lightweight farce from edging into dark or disturbing terrain. Kikuchi's appealingly glib dialogue boasts endless snarky one-liners — he certainly gets plenty of mileage from that old gag genre known as the "mock porn title" (Lady and the Gramps and Joy Suck Club, to name but a pair). Yet there's also something a little distasteful about the piece's steadfastly surface-level approach to the porn world's creepier aspects — and the farce's energy wanes midway through, when the play's one joke has reached its saturation point. Still, the show's saved by deft and hilarious turns from Hill's ferocious "tiger mom," and by the gruff, understated Shimono, as the world's most unlikely (yet strangely charismatic) porn star. East West Players, David Henry Hwang Theater, 120 Judge John Aiso St., Little Tokyo; Wed.-Sat., 8 p.m., Sun., 2 p.m., through March 13. (213) 625-7000. (Paul Birchall)

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