Hollywood Fringe's Beautiful Free-for-All Hits Year Three

Two shows that branched out beyond one performer were noteworthy for their treatment of celebrity in Hollywood: One was the world premiere of Jon Courie's Jennifer Aniston Stole My Life, a latter-day House of Blue Leaves in its depiction of desperation bordering on delirium among wannabes in North Hollywood. The situation's faux good cheer was distressingly well-observed under Deborah Geffner's staging.

No time for regrets in Brooke Forbes, Michael Bachmann and Kate Bowman's Natasha Mail Order Bride Escape to America: The Musical, a 30-minute romp featuring buxom blonde Forbes as Natasha from Crapistan, aiming to be a cross between Glee and I Love Lucy. The camp-fest has 'Tasha landing in Bel Air, 'Tasha getting thrown off a red carpet during a celebrity fundraiser, 'Tasha scouring Chinatown in search of representation. (Somebody told her she needed an agent, and she heard "Asian.") Cheeky, frothy and almost pointless, it might well become a hit television series.

PHOTO BY JOAO BRAZ

Paul Tucci and Betsy Moore in If Water Were Present, It Would Be Called Drowning

There also was a pair of memorable performances in impressively scripted plays by writer-directors: John Sinner's If Water Were Present, It Would Be Like Drowning and Colin Mitchell's Mission to Mate.

Betsy Moore plays out the diary of a mad housewife, Lolly, in the former, with fierce intensity. Above her is a video (by Carol Gehring) of a stove, seemingly static until you realize — as Lolly describes her estrangement and her visits to a tawdry motel room just to get out of the house and away from her adopted kids — that the stove top appears to be melting. Throughout, her husband (Paul Tucci), in a mask, a bowler hat and pin-striped suit, sits in their home dozing with newspaper in hand. The dreamy, poetical quality of the writing and of the imagery is beyond reproach.

It does, however, all seem vaguely retro, as though Lolly is Nora Helmer from Ibsen's A Doll's House, or perhaps Beckett's Winnie in Happy Days.

Mitchell's triptych of plays all feature Alla Poberesky in powerhouse performances, with a voice that morphs from silk to gravel. Poberesky and scene partner Michael Sanchez play out a series of courtships, centered on the male character's virginity. Poberesky swings from a rape victim to a crazed Russian cellist to an Angeleno just dumped by her boyfriend.

The plays drive from a Rod Serling–like mystery (one of the playlets refers to a lost Serling manuscript), propelled by unexpected comebacks and situations, absurdist, romantic and caustic, that won't let go.

The third annual Hollywood Fringe runs through June 24. Visit hollywoodfringe.org.