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THEATER REVIEW : A Few Gems Hidden in ‘Hudson’ Grab Bag

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SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

The program for “Hudson Shorts,” now playing at the Hudson Backstage, ballyhoos a roster of “20 directors and 70 actors in 27 short plays over 3 nights for 8 weeks.”

The plays in this ambitious three-part series were culled from 1,800 entries. During the wildly uneven first act of Evening C, one can only be thankful for being spared the thousand-odd rejects, but don’t write off the whole evening. A bulging brown paper grab bag, Evening C may yield a lot of trash, but it contains some genuine treasures too.

The evening opens with Jan Marlyn Reesman’s “Working Together,” a lame comedy blackout sketch that wouldn’t make the cut at an amateur night in Dixie. Hard on its heels follows James Tomkins’ “I’m a Professional,” a pointless, predictable piece about a senile elderly actress who is driving her frustrated stage director to the brink of distraction.

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Third in the bill is Tony Barbieri’s unpleasant “Trailer Trash,” a would-be farce about a redneck married couple who are raffling off their trailer home. As a premise, it’s not bad--until Barbieri uses it as a thin excuse for a succession of ranting monologues, delivered by flamboyant characters who all seem hovering on the brink of madness or outright idiocy.

Act One is almost salvaged by Adam Oliensis’ “Ring of Men,” a well-considered character study about three beer-swilling macho dudes whose longtime friendship is disrupted by an untimely revelation. Gary Blumsack’s direction is unflinching, fluid and achingly real, as are the visceral performances by Jeff Kahill, Rick Lawrence and David Sheinkopf as the friends.

Act Two continues promising with Patrick Pankhurst’s “The Man” and “Gas Chamber,” companion pieces about the musings of a condemned man (Rif Hutton) and an executioner (Jon Stafford) in the final moments before the cyanide pellets drop. Pankhurst, who also directed, has neatly overlapped the respective interior monologues into one suspenseful portmanteau piece.

Far and away the most uproarious crowd pleaser is Steve Monroe’s “The Confession,” ably directed by Francis X. McCarthy, in which a gleefully sadistic priest (Richard F. McGonagle) imposes a drastic penance on a contrite confessor (James DuMont). DuMont is amusingly hapless, but it is the dry, sardonic McGonagle who wrings every laugh out of Monroe’s irreverent black comedy.

The irreligious antics--and the laughs--continue apace with Pankhurst’s “The Crucifiction,” a gently outrageous comedy, directed by Mariko Ballentine, about a live stage performance of Christ’s Passion that goes disastrously awry.

From the dismally unfunny to the genuinely hilarious, “Hudson Shorts”: Evening C deserves both a pat on the back--and a teeny-weeny kick in the pants.

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* “Hudson Shorts”: Evening C, Hudson Backstage, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. Monday and March 22 and 29 at 8 p.m. $15. (213) 856-4249. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.

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