Wry Monologues Help ‘Celebrate’

“Celebrate Me Home” at the McCadden Place Theatre is the third play in solo performer Jude Narita’s trilogy. Like the trilogy’s first play, “Coming Into Passion/Song for a Sansei,” “Celebrate” uses loosely linked character monologues to illustrate the Japanese American experience.

Charlie Stratton, whose staging of the Wilton Project’s “Therese Raquin” a couple of seasons ago was brilliant, keeps the action spare and focused. Lighting designer Kathi O’Donohue, who also lit “Coming Into Passion” back in the late ‘80s, works magic with limited resources.

Narita’s best monologues are autobiographical--her wistful reminiscences about her Japanese-born grandfather, her wry musings on a recent heartbreak. However, Narita’s uncharacteristically heavy-handed caricatures of two “politically correct” female racists undermine what could have been a provocative statement about the insidiousness of prejudice--even among the most complacently liberal.

As ever, Narita is a charming, assured performer whose creative characterizations are as thought-provoking as they are entertaining. However, this time out, Narita fails to establish a cohesive theme that would give the sketches more direction and purpose.

* “Celebrate Me Home,” McCadden Place Theatre, 1157 N. McCadden Place, Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends Oct. 12. $12. (213) 466-1767. Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes.