Amy Hill Portrays Mother in ‘Reunion’

“Everything is true,” writer-performer Amy Hill writes in the program accompanying her one-woman show “Reunion.” The problem, as this entertaining but somewhat precious piece at Theatre Geo makes apparent, is that in art the figurative truth is far more important than the literal, absolute one.

Hill (best-known as Grandma on TV’s “All-American Girl”) plays her own mother, Ayako Yoneoka Hill, a good-natured, mildly witty octogenarian Japanese immigrant who cozily free-associates amid the knickknacks in her San Francisco apartment. This is Hill’s third installment in a trilogy of plays about herself and her family.

Costumed in a gray wig, smock and stirrup pants, Hill tackles subjects great and small, but mostly small. She recounts painful memories of growing up motherless in pre-World War II Japan and an arduous trek to the United States.

But the show’s bulk depends on featherweight observations and gentle jokes that sound directly transcribed from real life, including rambling monologues on laxatives, Las Vegas and lame TV shows. Anne Etue directs smoothly but can’t find dramatic heft or momentum.

Diverting as the material sometimes is--especially in Hill’s affectionate, impeccably timed performance--in the end it’s as illuminating as a visit to grandmother’s house.

* “Reunion,” Theatre Geo, 1229 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood. Fridays-Sundays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends May 14. $20. (213) 660-8587. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.