THESE, OUR PLAYWRIGHTS
Kinky Neon Rocker is one of those rally-round-the-flag excuses theater people use to put on shows: A beautiful old curved-wood rocking chair, painted in day-glo motley, features six times in six skits. Although six members of the Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights (ALAP) wrote a skit each, the writing is fairly consistent, in the realm of unfinished-to-just plain bad. David Fury directs all of them, and his work also is uniform throughout–if no piece sings, none completely falls down, either. The three-piece band Oolyakoo plays well, between pieces. Brian Raine’s stage management is quick and orderly–the shows go up and down like clockwork. Rose DeSena’s production looks of-a-piece. But without writing, what are you gonna do?
Dan Berkowitz’s Lesbian Vixens of the SS in “Hitler’s Off His Rocker” is a solipsistic little number about an L.A. stage production that thinks it’s a movie. Melissa Brandzel and Royana Black play actors dressed in something analogous to Nazi regalia purchased at an S&M dungeon for the blind; Matt Palazzollo plays a director in, yes, a scarf. If the concept of a director asking for close-ups onstage doesn’t make enough sense to parody, and if you’ve heard all these jokes before, and if these attractive actors have nothing to do except shout Up with Fringe!-type self-congratulations, hey, it’s short.
Elin Hampton’s F4: A widower in the aftermath of a tornado that didn’t kill him, damn it, has to be talked down from suicidal tendencies by an EMT/friend of his estranged daughter. This piece might work dramatically if a) it didn’t undercut its jokey side with a story of little hands sticking out of schoolyard rubble, overbalancing the piece into WTF mode, and if b) the suicidal farmer didn’t have to make a happy-ending change of heart based on nothing that happens onstage except the need to wrap up the sketch. Assistant stage manager Meagan Rinn was perfectly fine as the EMT, but Hampton’s saving grace is Ron Bottitta as the farmer, and his refusal to allow a script to dictate his ability to act. If Bottitta had played all the parts in Moose Murders, it would be running today.
Rom Watson’s Mr. Cuddles at least has a logical arc credibly explicated. Married couple JP Hubbell and Royana Black play a married couple trying to suck money out of visually impaired Grandma (the playwright’s wife, Cory Watson), whose new cat steals the play by being not a cat but a giant rat played by the playwright. The absurd story works itself quickly into a neat circle, and if the situations aren’t developed and the jokes aren’t witty, it’s complete with comeuppance and denouement; Rom Watson gives the funniest, most committed, most grounded performance of the skit.
With Gardening for Beginners, Michael Van Duzer presents the most ambitious writing of the 70-minute show. In three scenes, a couple (Kareem Ferguson and Matt Palazzollo) shops for a house; breaks up in it; and, in a wraparound that doesn’t serve a purpose, shops for that house again, in the moment from just before we saw them the first time. The acting is invested, and if Fury allows Palazzollo a little too much room to explore his feelings, it’s less self-indulgent than self-conscious. Expanded, this could be a touching and interesting piece.
Judith Allen’s It’s Your Funeral I found the most unpleasant of the day’s sketches: in what appears to be a three-person audition for sitcom writing and acting jobs, Allen poses an elderly New York Jewish mother (Annie Abbott) and grown daughter (Melissa Brandzel) in a tiresome, wink-nudge-and-quip-laden drag down morbidity lane. The big joke? Mom wants to talk about her burial plot, and daughter’s all mishegas about it! If you were a fan of The Nanny or Who’s the Boss, perhaps hilarity will ensue for you.
With Objectum Sexuality, Ron Burch provides the best overall writing of the show. It’s also the only one that doesn’t labor to include or dismissively write off the central neon-painted rocking chair gimmick. Here, Hubbell’s in love with a chair; Bottitta’s a therapist who has to talk him out of it. The language of furniture design flows into LMFT jargon for more than a few laughs. The actors work well together as confused patient and bemused doctor, and it looks like one of them might be making up his best lines. It’s a funny, satisfying seven minutes, and a good choice to end the show.
A worthier choice would have been to run this piece and six better ones.
Kinky Neon Rocker is exactly the kind of show that people from other towns reference when they describe Los Angeles as a cultural wasteland. Now, you see one The Homecoming (now playing in Venice) and you will see that L.A. is capable of the highest theatrical art. But one ALAP production can convince you that staying home in front of the TV is a better option. You can see Bottitta there, too. He’s got a 30-second Geico commercial running that’s better written and directed than anything in these 70 minutes.
photos by Stephen Burr, SeeHearStudios.com
Kinky Neon Rocker
The Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights
part of the Hollywood Fringe Festival
Lounge Theatre, 6201 Santa Monica Boulevard
ends on June 27, 2015
for tickets, visit Hollywood Fringe