Stage Reviews : In a Class by Itself: the Wicked Comedy of ‘F.M.’

Acreative-writing class may seem an improbable setting for a wicked comedy, but playwright Romulus Linney’s one-act “F.M.” serves a scorching ace in launching the Alliance Repertory Company’s new home, the Alliance Theatre in Burbank.

The just-built 50-seat house, with tiered seating, enjoys the intimacy of a projection room. A second one-act, another literary satire called “The Author’s Voice” by Richard Greenberg, gives the production a focus that theatergoers--especially would-be writers--will relish.

Anyone who’s ever taken a creative-writing course will identify with “F.M.” immediately. This night class, taught by an excruciatingly calm young woman (Nancy Locke), has only three students in it, all certifiably weird: a snarly, pregnant, man-hater (Kajon Cermak); a self-conscious, middle-aged, puritanical ninny (Constance Evans), and a glazed, tattered young man hiding a pint of Jim Beam who looks half dead but is really a genius (Scott Lowy).

The cryptic title “F.M.” stands for a blasphemy that can’t be spelled out here except to say it represents the title of the troubled male character’s roiling, broiling, ragged manuscript. We hear him begin to read from it, rushing through the Faulknerian verbiage in a wonderful literary curveball thrown by playwright Linney.

The searing Oedipal thrust of the manuscript hilariously crushes the literary pretensions of the petty female classmates, sending them into catatonic outrage. The teacher, meanwhile, quietly stunned by the beauty of the work, begins a dance of beguiling joy.

This is a production with trajectory. It’s vividly directed by Wings Hauser and enlivened by Lowy’s inventive performance as the murky genius, Cermak’s comedic peach of a brittle bitch (her book in progress is called “Scorched Dogs” and excoriates her recent husband), and Evans’ nervous, gangly stick of a woman who composes odes to sunshine and flowers.

In this company, Locke’s instructor only appears drab because the actress admirably holds back--until the sublime fade out, which Locke executes with delicacy and passion.

Where’s this play been hiding? Surprisingly, it’s taken seven years (since its bow in Philadelphia) for a theater to bring it here.

“The Author’s Voice,” also a West Coast debut, is a lesser but more bizarre piece from a playwright (Greenberg) who has a current hit on Broadway (“Eastern Standard”).

The premise here is darkly Faustian. A vacuous charlatan (Peter Fox) keeps a hideously deformed literary alter ego (a rich freakish turn by Dean Coleman) locked in a closet, writing brilliant stuff on his behalf. The insufferable phony is about to become a famous author. But the gnarly creature has perverse ideas of his own.

Susan Bugg plays a sexually avaricious literary agent, puzzled how her handsome client can be so personally bland and yet so creative. Her role would be funnier if Bugg were more worldly, less gawky and girlish. But she hurls with elan the play’s devilish off-hand line when she likens the writer’s dank apartment to “The House of Usher.”

Indeed, director Jeames Higgins has draped the show with a strong nod to Edgar Allan Poe.

At 3204 Magnolia Blvd., Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m., through April 23. Tickets: $10; (818) 566-7935.