FRINGE FESTIVAL : STAGE REVIEWS : TWO VIEWS OF MISGUIDED ROMANCE : ‘TALKING WITH’

A housewife recounts a dinner party where she, her husband and their guests are sitting around the TV playing with their new video game, eating pretzels, discussing the bond market . . . and she dreams of flying off to the land of Oz.

This is from “Talking With,” Jane Martin’s portrait of 11 special women. Each piece is a confession of deep desires, a precisely observed and comic juxtaposition of details, and conveys the sense that one person’s craziness is another’s life jacket.

Seeing “Talking With” again (Taper, Too first did it in 1984) spotlights Martin’s unique voice, and her ability to explode the specific into the cosmic. It’s also a reminder that such a voice requires talented actresses to embolden her text. We get that only part of the time at Company of Angels.

Interestingly, two of the most seemingly remote women--”Big 8,” the rodeo rider (Sylvia Brooks) and Jennifer Buchanan’s Appalachian snake handler--resound with truth, whereas Janet McGrath’s aging actress in “Fifteen Minutes” and Melissa Licker’s desperate actress in “Audition” are ephemeral and unaffecting.

Director Carol Ries (who also signs most of the show for the hearing-impaired) hasn’t gone far enough in giving form to the surrealism in Martin’s world. Suanne Spoke’s tattooed woman, for instance, doesn’t have enough markings to boast about them.

Performances at 5846 Waring Ave . Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 8 p.m., indefinitely. Tickets: $10; (213) 466-1767.