‘Human Remains’: Macabre for MTVers

“I found Linda in the freezer” may not be the kind of line you hear every day, but its deadpan delivery typifies the quirky, macabre humor that punctuates “Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love,” Brad Fraser’s chilling if somewhat limited dissection of stunted relationships.

Peppered with shock visuals, nudity and the occasional scream or gunshot, this ostensible erotic thriller at West Coast Ensemble plays like Hitchcock updated for the MTV crowd. It chronicles the disintegrating domestic scene of Candy (Meg Mulkey) and her gay actor/waiter roommate David (Rocco Vienhage), whose only close friend, the high-strung Bernie (Josh Carmichael), may or may not be a serial killer stalking the streets of Edmonton.

As a tortured psychic who craves abuse--the most complex and enigmatic figure in the piece--Kathleen Bailey sets an effectively creepy tone with her intermittent grisly crime stories and intuitive readings of the others’ darkest impulses.

And while AIDS, the ultimate serial killer, never intrudes directly into the play, it’s part of the backdrop against which David and Candy play out their increasingly desperate quests for love. For all its outrageous trappings, this is a shockingly conventional morality tale that ends in the best “Father Knows Best” tradition.

Alienation bred of universal dishonesty defines these characters’ emotional milieu--a theme successfully emphasized in Claudia Jaffee’s atmospheric staging, despite labored reliance on snippets of overlapping monologues delivered by the assembled cast in stark, isolated poses.

Growing suspicions about his friend are the shattering fissure in the facade of Gen-X numbness David sports to shield his feelings. His assertion that “You’ve seen everything by 16, emotionally speaking,” is especially telling. The relationships here lack any complexity beyond immature lust and lies, an emotional dissociation ultimately more unsettling than the play’s bugaboos of serial killers and AIDS. For all his considerable talent, playwright Fraser still has some growing up to do.

* “Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love,” Lex Theatre, 6760 Lexington Ave., Hollywood. Fridays, Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends Oct. 29. $15. (213) 871-1052. Running time: 2 hours.