THEATER REVIEW : West Coast’s ‘Payoff’ Crackles in Second Series of One-Acts

Series B of the West Coast Ensemble’s 10th Annual Celebration of One-Act Plays is, like Series A, a scant but entertaining program of three short plays. However, whereas Series A winds up with a big finish--H. Robert Griffith’s moving family drama “Yoogene”--Series B never quite delivers the emotional punch of its predecessor.

John Arnold’s “The Payoff,” directed by Alison Vail, starts the evening at a galloping pace. Television station owner Frank (Michael Clair Miller) epitomizes the nightmare boss--a blustering sexist who promotes the women in his ranks on the basis of sexual favors. Frank has decided to fire the “uppity” Alice (Michelle Mikesell), despite the fact that she’s the best performer in his sales department. Frank’s sales manager Ted (Peter Hussman), a nice guy trapped behind a big paycheck, reluctantly prepares to back his obnoxious boss in his latest folly. But before Frank can deliver the coup de grace , Alice masterfully skewers him instead, while the delighted Ted looks on.

Vail’s crisp direction and crackling performances drive Arnold’s comeuppance play to an amusing terminus.

Speaking of termini, Brian Christopher Williams obviously finds places of public transportation dramatically evocative. Williams’ “A Rose From Bayside” is set in a run-down bus station. His Series A entry, “Token to the Moon,” is set at a Manhattan subway stop. “Token” concerns a chance meeting--and soulful mating--between a lonely linguist and an itinerant telepath. No such romantic or paranormal elements exist in the more down-to-earth “Bayside”--unless you count Rose’s belief in the existence of modern-day miracles.

Rose (Tina Witek) has just returned from Bayside, N.Y., where a Christian cult has been purportedly performing miracles in Jesus’ name. Rose desperately needs something to hang on to. Her husband, a Montana rancher, has been reduced to a gibbering, infantile state by a devastating stroke.

Rose meets Joe (William J. Duffy), coincidentally a native of Bayside, while waiting for her bus back home. A scruffy skeptic nursing the wounds of a recent failed relationship, Joe is as ardent in his disbelief as Rose is in her faith. Despite their differences, these two briefly--but deeply--connect.

Williams excels in depicting random meetings and chance communions between lost souls. Director Avner Garbi delicately dramatizes the tender mercies of Williams’ piece. Witek’s Rose is sympathetic but somewhat one-dimensional. Most striking is Duffy’s humane, intensely real portrayal of Joe.

The evening concludes with Dan Kenefick’s “Peep Show,” directed by Michael Zemenick, in which a Philadelphia hooker (Carol Adele Davis), who is working the peep booths, receives an unexpected visitor from her past (Kevin Scott Allen). Kenefick’s writing debut, the piece becomes increasingly reiterative and muddled. Allen seems more glum than tormented in his role. It’s Davis’ fascinating, strutting sex-kitten, who turns her blazing sexuality on and off like a blowtorch, that keeps us feeding the tokens into this otherwise flawed play.

* 10th Annual Celebration of One-Act Plays: Series B, West Coast Ensemble, 6240 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. $10. Call (213) 871-1052 for schedule. Ends March 24. Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes.