Zeta Collective at the Fringe; ‘K. D. Dufford’ at Friends and Artists; ‘Jerry’s Girls’ at La Mirada Civic; ‘West Coast One-Acts’ at Ensemble

For such a resolutely non-verbal form of theater, corporeal mime tends to bring out the message-maker in its practitioners. Mime Thomas Leabhart has used the method, first developed by Etienne Decroux, for very caustic commentaries on our buy-and-sell society. Now, the Zeta Collective, led by William Fisher, is making very pointed remarks about American media and Reagan-era “news-spin” in a three-part piece, “Freedom of Information” (first work in a series titled “Myths of Freedom”) at the L.A. Fringe Theatre.

How to describe corporeal mime? Think of your standard mime, the half-mechanical, half-organic set of movements, and then strip away most of the movement. Add to this a sense that the ground under one’s feet is no longer level, plus the illusion that the only thing that will keep the body from falling off into space is the body itself. The state of mind is very existential, the performers usually alone.

“Freedom’s” first piece, though, is for a group, playing harried business people caught in a rat race. What it has to do with media disinformation is unclear, but it’s full of clever, modern slapstick.

The following works are more in the classic Decroux vein. In one, an androgynous-like naked man awakens, his movements progressing from animality to human vulnerability. A telling image near the end of the piece has the man trying to blanket himself in a newspaper, only it can’t keep him warm.

The final work shifts from a primal world to a technological one, with television, radio and newsprint consuming airspace and floor space. The hilariously manipulated sound montage by Pamela Burton (Oliver North: “I thought it was the right right right idea”) is perfectly married to the suggestion of the mind--as expressed by the body--going akimbo from the accumulation of politicians’ deceits.

Fisher, William Freeman and Fanny de Sousa convey emotion through a disciplined approach in the solo performances, and director Fisher and lighting designers Eileen Cooley and Michael Chase use the deep Fringe space for a series of often powerful yet unemphatic stage pictures.

At 929 E. 2nd St., downtown, Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 7:30 p.m., through May 28; (213) 617-8259.

‘K. D. Dufford’

Fisher’s attack on the media is, in Marshall McLuhan’s parlance, “cool.” Playwright David Halliwell attacks the media, particularly television, with a “hot” approach in his 1969 British play, “K. D. Dufford Hears K. D. Dufford Ask K. D. Dufford How K. D. Dufford’ll Make K. D. Dufford.”

In what is credited as the American premiere, James Gardner’s Friends and Artists Theatre production makes Halliwell’s attack seem especially fierce--the theater’s small space makes for an in-your-face experience, and Ken Hanes’ performance as Dufford has the kind of wild extravagance of Malcolm McDowell in his heyday.

Dufford, in an effort at media celebrity, has murdered a child as a camera records it. So outrageous and spectacular is the crime that his acquaintances become celebrities in their own right (Jon Simpson’s Geoffrey Thagney is quite aggressive at this game).

But Halliwell uses this only as a jumping point for a baroque and daringly successful experiment in telling Dufford’s depraved tale from several points of view and in various tones. The same action--Dufford visiting the Lubb residence, for instance, where he meets his young victim (Maria Rocha)--is repeated, including a TV version, with differing conclusions each time. It is the Rashomon effect, filtered through a video lens, played out with the inevitability of a chess game.

So elaborate is the exercise, and so expansive are the performances (Simpson and Jim McKeny’s Brian are deliciously beastly--no less in their own way than Hanes’ Dufford) that the moral here is nearly drowned out. Murder as self-promoting performance, Halliwell declares, has social as well as personal causes (though the video montage and bank of monitors, designed by actor Simpson, often make this stiflingly obvious). Twenty years hasn’t dated this relentlessly black comedy a day.

At 1761 N. Vermont Ave., Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m., through June 4. Tickets: $12.50; (213) 466-1767.

‘Jerry’s Girls’

In a revue of 35 show tunes by that undying optimist of Broadway, composer/lyricist Jerry Herman, the quintessential Herman tune may seem hard to pinpoint.

Yet “Jerry’s Girls,” at the La Mirada Civic Theatre, for all its shameless self-advertising and razzmatazz, does reveal a songwriter with his own point of view, and it’s best summed up in “Before the Parade Passes By,” from “Hello, Dolly!” (and sung by Gretchen Wyler). The Herman heroines (heroes in “La Cage aux Folles”) know that the years are piling up, but that makes them all the more determined to grab life one last time by the collar.

Such determination is the stuff of Broadway, and “Jerry’s Girls” is as much a eulogy to big-scale American musical comedy as it is a road map to Hermania. It is, therefore, not to everyone’s palate. But Glenn Casale’s production does have a perpetually energetic Jo Anne Worley in very good voice and Lorna Patterson in outstanding voice, as well as a parade of Garland Riddle costumes that would shine on any stage.

Herman’s and Larry Alford’s compilation also restores neglected, fine work, such as “Kiss Her Now” from “Dear World,” to a rightful place.

Herman isn’t all bombast.

At 14900 La Mirada Blvd., La Mirada, Tuesdays through Fridays, 8 p.m., Saturdays, 2:30 and 8 p.m., Sundays, 2:30 and 7 p.m., until May 21. Tickets: $16.50-$19.50; (213) 944-9801 or (714) 994-6310.

‘West Coast One-Acts’

Vicki Davis’ “You’re Getting Warmer” and Dale Wilson’s “Make a Wish,” two in a series of eight plays making up the West Coast Ensemble’s “Fifth Celebration of One-Acts,” attempt differing approaches toward death and how people contend with it. They may have variety, but they aren’t vital.

Davis has two mothers (Alaryce Joseph’s black Caribbean earth woman and Katherine Bates’ prim, middle-class type, under Aimee Patrick’s direction) holding vigil in a hospital waiting room. Joseph is far more outgoing, Bates is very contained, but both reveal that their children are dying of leukemia. Davis’ exchange is very predictable, and her situation is not a rich one for culling fresh portraits in courage.

“Make a Wish” is simply ludicrous, a crude stringing together of tasteless jokes and deflated comedy. Dexter has just died, falling face-down into his 36th birthday cake, and his Marin County friends are in an aimless state of panic. Instead of any real farce, we get meandering conversations obsessed with infidelity. Wayne Dvorak’s cast goes through the motions of this strained attempt at Joe Orton-meets-”thirtysomething.”

At 6240 Hollywood Blvd., May 18, 19, 27, 30, 31, June 8 and 9 at 8 p.m.; May 28 at 3 p.m. Tickets: $12; (213) 871-1052.