An Honestly Funny Sex Monologue

Josh Kornbluth on paper is one thing. Josh Kornbluth in person is another. The paper account of his solo performance, “The Moisture Seekers: A Monologue About Sex,” makes it sound like yet another variation on “How I Lost My Virginity.” And, in a sense, the live account is just that.

But there’s a context--which is where and how Kornbluth does his act. First, as part of “Parlor Performances,” a series set in unconventional spaces like people’s living rooms, he’s booked not in a club or a familiar zone for performance artists, but in a children’s art gallery, Every Picture Tells a Story.

Kornbluth’s word pictures are as vivid as some of the fairy-tale images surrounding him (his description of riding an ancient, creaky elevator sends out a physical sensation), but his own tale of innocence lost is definitely subversive in such a setting.

Kornbluth turns his vulnerability--as a guy airing his moist laundry in public--into a strength, like Woody Allen did in his stand-up days. Unlike Allen’s solipsism, Kornbluth follows Spalding Gray’s lead in being more concerned about his story’s details and rhythms than he is about himself.

He alternates between comically acerbic memories of his eccentric family (Mom leads a literary workshop in “unpublishable writing”) and his growing attraction to Marcie, a neighbor who leads Josh and us into some delicious surprises. Unlike the comics taking over prime time, Kornbluth is so instinctively honest, he can’t help but be funny.

He’s also serving up two other auto-portraits at the same space (through Sunday): “Josh Kornbluth’s Daily World” and “Haiku Tunnel: Adventures of a Male Legal Secretary.”

“The Moisture Seekers: A Monologue About Sex,” Every Picture Tells a Story Gallery, 836 N. La Brea Ave., Saturday, 10 p.m., Sunday, 7 p.m. $10-$15; (213) 471-3979. Running time: 1 hour, 10 minutes.

Multimedia Columbus Project Founders

The least artists can do in the rising debate over the acts and legacy of Christopher Columbus is raise the level of the discussion. That’s why the promise of “Mondo Novo,” a multimedia performance work at Highways, was so great: Not only was Highways to venture further into territory far from ultra-topical, low-tech or solo works, but it was tackling a big subject with big dramatic possibilities, involving such vital artists as writer Keith Antar Mason and composer Steve Moshier.

Unfortunately, it’s Mondo Awful. Director Matt Silverstein’s collaborative script with Mason and Paula Gunn Allen is profoundly confused about Columbus, history, colonialism and--not least of which--whether this is a comedy, tragedy or some invented hybrid of both.

“Mondo Novo,” in its own way, does as much damage as the worst kind of romanticized paean to Columbus, because it trivializes the issues through hapless theatrics.

John White’s design--a background wall bedecked with symbolic props of empire, religion and exploration and a huge map of the known world in 1490--suggests an inventive, modern view of 500 years ago. What’s in front of White’s white wall is just the opposite: Through a span of eight scenes, Silverstein’s actors are asked to play out a murky near-burlesque of Queen Isabella’s assignment to her destitute explorer (Tim Ottman’s Columbus is Surfer Dude in costume).

Things go spinning out of control during a Spanish Inquisition scene that turns bloodthirstiness into a bad joke. Columbus’ voyage becomes a pallid soap opera of bed-switching lovers. A better joke has Columbus and crew dressed in safari gear to meet the first Americans; but there’s no climax here, just a silly musing about the explorer/invader’s problems with--get this--women and breast feeding.

A monument to how creative political theater can turn into an aimless committee project, “Mondo Novo” doesn’t show off anyone very well, especially choreographer Tina Gerstler’s cliched couplings and Moshier’s unusually flat score.

“Mondo Novo,” Highways, 1651 18th St., Santa Monica, Friday-Sunday, 8:30 p.m. $8; (213) 453-1755. Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes.

Raymond Chandler’s City by the Bay

A weariness descends over Raymond Chandler’s “Bay City Blues,” at the Lex Theatre, like one of those marine layers Santa Monica (the basis for Chandler’s Bay City) is famous for. Some might find the impossibly serpentine plot in R. Hamilton Wright’s adaptation the most wearying thing of all: You can’t turn back performing time the way you can a novel’s pages. For others, this is precisely the game of a show like this: Can you keep up with it?

What keeps us at arm’s length from Jill C. Klein’s production, though, is a flat rendering of this gumshoe universe. There’s more danger evoked in Cheryl Waters’ lights, for instance, than any number of performances. Burr DeBenning as Johnny Dalmas, a close cousin to Chandler’s better-known and equally burned-out Philip Marlowe, keeps things anchored, but veers close to an impersonation of Bogey as Sam Spade--Dashiell Hammett’s man, not Chandler’s.

As Dalmas descends into Bay City’s corrupt morass of cops-on-the-take, drugs and two-timers, there are chances for nice moments from Andrea Stein (who makes her drunken Helen more than a plot device) and Charles Hyman as a brute who gets our sympathy. It’s just that Wright’s adaptation hints at much more style than we get here.

“Bay City Blues,” Lex Theatre, 6760 Lexington Ave., Hollywood, Thursdays-Sundays, 8 p.m. Ends Nov. 2. $10; (213) 463-6244. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.