STAGE REVIEW : Sheri Glaser Reveals True ‘Secrets of Life’

Sheri Glaser, with her tinny voice and spindly frame, will never get by on appearance. But what an actress!

Her art is the character monologue, and she reminds you of a young Lily Tomlin 20 years ago. Her “Sheri Glaser: Secrets of Life” is at the Rose Theater in Venice.

Glaser, who is 29, co-wrote and co-directed the show’s five monologues with husband Greg Howells. The characters range from a callow teen-ager to are all women except for one odd man out--a macho Latino trans-channeler who is channeled into yet another character.

What distinguishes the work, besides the mercurial Glaser, is the wealth of social observation, the carefully crafted writing teetering between humor and pathos, and the largely affectionate tone. As for the versatile Glaser, she twists her reedy voice and sticklike body into a gallery of vocal animations that appear to materialize off an artist’s drawing board. She’s like pen and ink on a strip panel.

Glaser knows precisely how to convey personality with a corkscrew twist of her arm or a pregnant-laden gait as when she plays a country girl giving birth at home.

Her portrait of a shuffling Jewish woman finding romance in her sunset years is a poignant signature and the revue’s welcome segue into a complete costume change (otherwise she would do well to dump those scrawny black tights).

The production’s highlight is Glaser’s agitated, Angst -ridden teen-ager grappling with life’s insecurities the morning after she got high at a party and lost her virginity to a guy she didn’t know.

Flopping on her bed the next morning, she desperately waits for the cad to phone while screaming at her offstage mother about doing the dishes. The girl’s clinical and hilarious re-creation of just how she succumbed to lust, with accompanying and infinite disappointment, is a hilarious piece of writing and acting. The whole monologue suggests a female Holden Caufield. At 318 Lincoln Blvd., Venice (rear entrance), Sundays only, 8 p.m., through Oct. 29. Tickets: $10; (213) 455-3069.