‘Roadtrip’ Cuts Wide Path Across U.S. Life

Eliza Schneider’s one-woman “Roadtrip” at Glaxa Studios features a cast of dozens--all of them strangers whom Schneider met and interviewed during a months-long road trip across the continental U.S.

Culled from actual interview transcripts, with narrative bridges by Schneider, “Roadtrip” is a vivid oral history of American life. Whatever their regional or ethnic persuasion, Schneider’s everymen and everywomen are opinionated, touching and amazingly diverse.

Director Sal Romeo guides the youthful Schneider with evocative restraint, never dulling the edge of her offbeat vision. Although the synthesis of her challenging material is sometimes choppy, Schneider shows a virtuosic command of American dialects, capturing the fine distinctions of regional voices with precocious skill.

Trusting, curious, fearless to the point of foolhardiness, Schneider hobnobbed with a broad spectrum of humanity during her cross-country journey, from fundamentalists to the elite to strung-out street junkies. The most stunning moment of the show, when Schneider averts the attack of a vicious homeless man by bursting into an operatic aria, is pure poetry, a soaring metaphoric counterpoint to the play’s recurrent theme about human desperation and the redemptive powers of art.

* “Roadtrip,” Glaxa Studios, 3707 Sunset Blvd., Silver Lake. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends June 22. $10. (213) 663-5295. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.