‘2.5 Minute Ride’ Takes Riveting Trip Through Life

The title of “2.5 Minute Ride,” Lisa Kron’s new solo work at La Jolla Playhouse’s Mandell Weiss Forum, refers to a roller-coaster ride at Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio.

A really thrilling roller-coaster ride.

Her show is a lot like that.

Segueing without warning from amusement park anecdotes to her brother’s wedding to tales of visiting Auschwitz with her father, whose entire family perished there, Kron crafts an emotional journey that careens from humor to pathos with sudden plunges into the mysteries of the heart.

It also works seamlessly, without any discernible transitions. A veteran performer known for her work with the Bessie- and Obie-winning Five Lesbian Brothers, Kron is matter-of-fact about being gay, saying about her brother and his fiancee, “I wanted them to know we accept them even though they’re straight.”

Her show, which she will perform at UCLA in May, also has a moral message, drawn from the life experiences of her 75-year-old father, for whom this show exudes love and admiration.

Her father, a lawyer, interrogated Nazis for the army after the war. The experience left him not with hate, but with sensitivity to the complexities of morality. She tells how he wonders if he would have had the courage of one German schoolmate who refused to succumb to the pressure to wear a Nazi uniform. He confesses he identified with one former Gestapo agent he interviewed who didn’t understand why he was being punished for doing what his society told him was moral at the time.

“If it wasn’t for the good fortune of being a Jew, I might have been a Nazi,” he says.

Kron performs her show on a simple stage, with a chair and a stand for her text. Lights darken and music plays when she goes into odd but funny dream sequences that bring in such unlikely subjects as Sen. Alfonse D’Amato and Dean Martin.

It’s not always clear how these segments fit, except to provide broad comic relief. But Kron’s knowing smile draws you in.

With a self-effacing shrug that seems to suggest that this whole conversation is just an intimate te^te-a-te^te, she draws you hypnotically on this ride, and you hang on, anxious to see how it all turns out, through the rapid twists and drops.

* “2.5 Minute Ride,” La Jolla Playhouse, UC San Diego, La Jolla. Tuesday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 7 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 2 p.m. Ends Oct. 27. $19-$36. (619) 550-1010. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.