STAGE REVIEW : Off-the-Wall Hour of Woody Allen’s ‘Death’ in Fullerton

The great Woody Allen obsesses on a lot of things, but, as every fan knows, his favorite misery is dwelling on death.

His comic ruminations on the big sleep show up in most of his movies, many of his short stories and plenty of his plays. He even wrote a one-act, named simply and appropriately “Death.”

The Fullerton College theater arts department has taken this goofy, neurotic, boisterous one-hour-long number and run with it--Tuesday’s opening night had the right pace (quick) and the right attitude (off-the-wall).

“Death” loosely follows Kleinman, a typically compulsive Allen anti-hero, all worry and hesitation, as he gets entangled in a vigilante group’s crazed efforts to track down a homicidal maniac who’s running amok in New York City.

Kleinman, like the doomed character in Kafka’s “The Trial,” is wrested from his bed and tossed into the fray, never knowing exactly what the whole deal is about. First he’s a suspect, then he’s an important part of the posse, then he’s a suspect again. Finally, he’s a victim.

Along the way, he runs into an insane doctor, an insane hooker (get a look at Traci McWain’s incredible hat) and, eventually, the insane murderer. All the while, he nervously gabs about this and that, especially death. As Kleinman mutters at one point, “It’s not that I’m afraid to die, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”

Director Brian Kojac apparently feels that no actor but Woody Allen could do justice to Kleinman, so he has Joey Napoli play him like a Woody clone. That’s OK, though--Napoli does a pretty decent impression; it’s an amusing, if not always original, performance from start to finish.

The rest of the cast also adds to the fun, although the roles don’t require much more than going to the brink. These are exaggerated portrayals for exaggerated characters.

There are some clever turns from Kojac. The first scenes, of the power-tool-carrying vigilantes massed together and moving crab-like across the stage, is accompanied by the Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer.” We get a counterpoint to that at play’s end when everybody gathers around the body of Kleinman and croons “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” Manhattan may be a jungle, but Kleinman was no lion.

The program opens with a 20-minute adaptation of Allen’s short story “The Whore of Mensa,” now entitled “Street Smart.” This is just a trifle, sort of a prolonged gag that has a few sharp lines but doesn’t march anywhere. The joke centers on buying prostitutes for their pretentious intellectual capacity instead of their physical gifts.

In it, a private eye named Arrow (Thomas M. Nealeigh) goes undercover to ferret out Flossie’s (Karl Schott’s) ring of “Moby Dick”-spouting girls. Arrow is hard-boiled and Flossie is funny as a guy in drag “with Brenda Vaccaro’s voice.” The bit may be worth it just to see Laura Lynn Orlow fake a good orgasm while babbling smart stuff.

‘DEATH,’ ‘STREET SMART’

A Fullerton College production of one-acts by Woody Allen. Directed by Brian Kojac. With Joey Napoli, Cress Williams, Jose Amado Lavarreda, Michael Quinn, Mary Thornton, Clinton Sutherland, Amanda De Maio, Paul Hagerty, Traci McWain, Karl Schott, Barney W. Evans, Richard Levine, Monique Naffaa, Dave Amitin, Michael Garcia, Thomas M. Nealeigh and Laura Lynn Orlow. Set by Bob Jensen. Lighting by Brad Enochs. Sound by Ralph Aparicio. Plays through Saturday at 8 p.m. at the campus’s Studio Theatre, 321 E. Chapman Ave., Fullerton. Tickets: $5 to $7. (714) 871-8101.