STAGE REVIEW : Channing Has a Fistful of Characters

Carissa Channing can.

Her one-woman “I Can Put My Fist in My Mouth” at Theatre/Theater is more than a title. It’s an act of faith. And a dare. The kind kids foist on one another. But, yes, there really is room in that big, attractive mouth of hers for a fist, plus a fistful of reconstituted characters: her grandmother, her mother, herself, her teacher, her friends and a few vivid strangers. Some funny, some not so funny.

All are carefully observed and for the most part beautifully reproduced. Grandma is a reminiscing Jewish one, who overfeeds you, then asks you if you’re hungry. Mother is super-mom, all set to fly out to the coast and manage her daughter’s career. She’ll have her at the top of the show-business heap in two weeks. Well, three maybe.

Those are the traditional family sketches, well done but neither new nor unexpected. And when it comes to Jewish mothers, no one, but no one, can top Ellen Ratner’s in Gina Wendkos’ “Personality,” the yenta queen of queens, which recently made a comeback at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble.

Where Channing gives us something fresh is in her observation of herself and friends under age 21. Here, Channing doesn’t miss a beat and her most incisive strokes come in throwaway lines: The Valley Girl who can’t quite face a mother who’s been in Palm Springs for the weekend and admit that what she did for fun is take 50 sleeping pills and get her stomach pumped; the 12-year-old in a back brace telling a friend that her mother is a “busy lawyer” who can’t be at the hospital when she has surgery; the casual embarrassment of an adenoidal 5-year-old, trying not to spit as she talks.

These are the nuggets--humorous, touching, honest. The fool’s gold comes in the standard-issue portraits of an aging British actress lightly pickled in gin. Or a tyrannical schoolteacher torturing her pet victim. Or chuckling librarian Marian, who has her filing routines down pat and can show that bushy-tailed new apprentice where the salacious books are.

Compared to the children’s sketches, these are heavy-handed cartoons, without resonance and far less personal, even if some of Channing’s best stuff eventually comes from that category.

The most compelling item on the bill, for instance, is that of a high-schooler writing a fan letter to Madonna that turns into a startling revelation and deeply felt other kind of plea.

It is in deviously contrasting the ordinary with the extraordinary, as she does here, that Channing excels. Whatever director Kathy Najimy (of “The Kathy and Mo Show”) contributed hasn’t hurt either. The sketches are brisk and Channing doesn’t overstay her welcome. One gives her high marks as a performer, but even higher ones as a prospective writer. She knows how to get the jump on character and cut to the quick.

Having acknowledged that, one must acknowledge something else: that what Channing and we suffer from is a deluge of one-person shows all of which are beginning to run together in one massive showcase. This may not diminish the quality of the individual work, but it does sometimes make you want to fit both fists in your mouth.

* “I Can Fit My Fist in My Mouth,” Theatre/Theater, 1713 Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood. Thursdays-Fridays, 8 p.m. Ends March 13. $15; (213) 464-8938. Running time: 1 hour, 5 minutes.