Theater Review : Garcia Directs an Engaging ‘Race2Love’

“Race2Love,” in Los Angeles Theatre Center’s downstairs hall, is a wry and engaging one-act chronicling an interracial romance, related by a man and a woman in both the past and present tenses.

Its big drawing card may be the fact that movie star Andy Garcia directed it--and his direction is smoothly professional. But the real star of the show is writer-actor Joe Drago, who writes with a simple, unassuming voice and likewise acts the role of Michael.

Michael’s a Sicilian American guy who falls for an African American woman but isn’t sure how far to fall. The woman is played by Paunita Nichols, who adds considerable charm and also takes on the brief roles of Michael’s other girlfriends and his mother with aplomb.

The only problem with the play is an abrupt ending that leaves us dangling about three-fourths of the way into the story.

Drago’s duet is preceded by Rick Simone’s one-man, three-character piece, “These People.” He plays an L.A. dude who works in a surf and ski shop, plus two New Yorkers--an Italian American pizza maker and an African American woman who works at Kentucky Fried Chicken and attends NYU. The three appear to be loosely connected by a fourth, unseen character.

Simone’s first go-round with his people looks superficial, but as he returns to them, we hear less predictable revelations about their families and their love lives--and the characters deepen. Simone, who himself looks like a teen idol, skillfully delineates his characters with posture and voice.

His writing is flavorful and funny but occasionally stoops to manipulative heart-tugging, and he should shorten his own sermonizing at the beginning and end. Keny Long directed.

The double bill, produced by George Fernandez and Colin Cox in association with Will & Company, benefits the Venice Arts Mecca, an organization that creates arts training programs for youth in Venice and also campaigns to revive the Venice Beach Pavilion as an arts center.

* “Race2Love” and “These People,” Los Angeles Theatre Center Theatre 3, 514 S. Spring St., Los Angeles. Tonight, Saturday, June 23-25, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m. $11. (213) 485-1681. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.