‘Confessions of a TV Junkie’ Often Amazing

It’s in theater’s interest to trash the competition for the entertainment dollar--namely, television. “Confessions of a TV Junkie,” John Kassir’s often amazing performance work directed by Valerie Landsburg-McVay at the Hudson Theatre, depicts the tube not only as a drug, but as a demonic force that takes possession and doesn’t let go. But Kassir also knows that TV is a repository of many of our guilty pleasures. So, as a character named John Kassir, he also enjoys getting sucked into George Jetson’s world. He wouldn’t be a TV junkie if it weren’t so much fun.

But even with the hidden love of TV between the lines, Kassir’s work is a very good reason to turn the TV off, leave the house and go to the theater. (Ironically, the show’s flat video effects make the stage action look flashy.) He fires off vocal sound effects like Nolan Ryan fires fastballs. He captures the exact way a power drill goes through wood, or the sound of Rodan attacking Tokyo, or about a zillion other sounds.

It all comes dangerously close to showcase theater, but the soundtrack here says better than words how far this guy has fallen down the black hole of cable. And the Kassir voice machine includes ventriloquism, paving the way for another character named Smokey Tones-Jones, who’s fighting a tube addiction himself.

* “Confessions of a TV Junkie,” Hudson Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7:30 p.m. Ends Feb. 21. $12.50-$15; (213) 660-8587. Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes.

‘Soul & Money’ a Quirky Quintet

“Soul & Money,” five one-acts by the Redwood playwrights group at Theatre/Theater, is a small-theater equivalent of a literary quarterly’s collection of work. Forget quality control, but if you listen closely, you’ll hear the fraying, sad attempts of men and women to connect.

The fraying is especially sad in Robert Hummer’s “5 Brothers and Their Mother” and John Pappas’ “An Authority,” which also stand as good examples of the writer directing his own work. In a nice trade, Pappas in Hummer’s work caustically plays the brother with the most problems with his mother (Pamela Gordon), while Hummer in Pappas’ duologue plays a husband vying with his wife (an edgy Paula Heller) for control of the marriage.

No one really wins in these plays; when Gilbert Girion’s “Floating With Jane,” directed by Burke Byrnes, posits a sexual victory, it feels very incomplete. Jack Hollingsworth’s “A Dream House,” directed by John Diehl, goes from satiric to fuzzy as a yuppie (a too frenetic Robert Fieldsteel) lets his stressed mind wander too far when he can’t sell his house. The insane sexuality of Nick Flynn’s countess (a wry Gordon, directed by Girion) in “Number One (Part 2)” is infinitely funnier.

* “Soul & Money,” Theatre/Theater, 1713 Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends March 7. $10; (213) 469-9689. Running time: 2 hours.

Sweetly Comic Gang With a Mission

There’s more padding in Ramona King’s gangland-era comedy, “Steal Away” (part of West Coast Ensemble’s Black History Month festival), than in the Dillinger-esque coats King’s ladies wear when they go rob a bank. But what makes them undeniably, irrepressibly cute is their motive: To raise funds for sending young black women to college. It seems that the pie sales don’t bring in the cash.

King, and director Gammy Singer, discourage us from taking these upstanding folks’ descent into crime too seriously: They’re the kind of darling anti-heroines Hollywood used to love, caring mothers who want the best for their loved ones--by any means necessary. Sherry D. Green’s just-graduated Tracy tries to organize these coffee-klatchers into a unit, and, despite a long, expository set-up, actresses Michelle Davison, Cheryl Tyre-Smith, Amentha Dymally, Aloma Wright and Vonna Bowen make up a sweetly comic gang.

* “Steal Away,” West Coast Ensemble, 6240 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends March 13. $15; (213) 871-1052. Running time: 2 hours.

‘Oh Freedom’ Derails at Ensemble

The story of the Underground Railroad that ushered Southern slaves to Northern freedom would seem impossible to make boring; alas, Gammy Singer’s and Bobbye Gooden’s “Oh Freedom” does the impossible. On one side of director Sharon Lee Connors’ stage at the West Coast Ensemble sit the bigoted white mother and daughter recalling the “Negroes’ happy songs.” On the other side are three generations of black women recalling what those songs really meant.

If only the show were as multilayered as the tunes, which served as secret codes for escaping slaves. The singing chorus invokes the full emotional spectrum from joy to pain supported by deep faith, but it can’t prevent this Black History Month show from being museum theater.

* “Oh Freedom,” West Coast Ensemble, 6240 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. Tuesdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m; March 14, 4 p.m. Ends March 14. $15; (213) 871-1052. Running time: 55 minutes.

Fantasy Musical for Black History Month

Miriam Green’s “Satch’s Place” at West Coast Ensemble imagines the ranks of jazz and blues giants singing at heaven’s gates--a trite idea, but also a wonderful chance for a director to spin fantasies during Black History Month. Yet Les Hanson’s staging is a mere concert piece on a visually blank stage where various singers, and dancer Bill Bojangles Robinson (Abdullah Rasheen Hall, who hardly dances), pass around tunes.

This place is closer to hell than heaven, because too many actors have terminal problems getting into character. A few, like Green’s bold Bessie Smith and Bobbye Gooden’s brassy Ma Rainey, really fly. But Jessie T. Wilkins’ inaudible Nat King Cole and Charles Hollis’ silly impersonation of host Louis Armstrong--to name two--turn this into a poor excuse for playing dress-up.

* “Satch’s Place,” West Coast Ensemble, 6240 Hollywood Blvd. Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Ends March 10. $15; (213) 871-1052. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.

A Methodical ‘Diary of a Madman’

Nikolai Gogol’s great 1834 precursor of absurdist art, “Diary of a Madman,” can be seen as a metaphorical view of imagination as a self-destructive weapon. Actors see it as a terrific monologue piece, partly because playing mad can be fun, partly because there are so many ways of playing mad.

At Theatre/Theater, actor-director-adapter Rush Pearson plays it slow and methodical--as in the Method. His actorish indulgences go down easy, though, because Pearson is on uncommonly intimate terms with the text.

When Pearson’s lowly Russian clerk talks of his unattainable love, for instance, his eyes give off a visible glow in this tiny performing space. Pearson has him snapping because of this hopeless love more than, say, because of his overactive imagination and the bureaucratic life that fuels it. It’s a sound reading of this man, if not the most interesting one, and Pearson’s body-and-soul commitment to the approach compels us to lend an ear.

* “Diary of a Madman,” Theatre/Theater, 1713 Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood. Tuesdays-Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Ends Feb. 25. $10; (213) 469-9689. Running time: 1 hours, 45 minutes.