Not Quite the Bare Truth

In “Nude Nude Totally Nude,” Andrea Martin promises to expose the woman behind all those characters with funny glasses and wonderfully eruptive energy she created for “SCTV.” But her title implies more than the actress delivers in her one-woman show having its West Coast premiere at the Canon Theatre in Beverly Hills.

For the first time, this gifted comedian gives us characters very close to her own marrow. She tells personal stories from her “journey of self-discovery.” But, in fact, she never digs very deep and she frequently races back to perform her familiar TV characters as if they were safe spots. Consequently, “Nude Nude” remains essentially a good stand-up act, lighted and presented as if it were an evening of theater.

Martin begins her show in a mock revealing mode--standing naked but actually in a painted body stocking, in homage to the woman in Edward Hopper’s painting “Lonely Woman in a Cheap Hotel,” which is projected on a panel behind her. Although Martin eventually enters the image through a neat special effect, she busily avoids the haunting, naked evocation of melancholy that attracts her to Hopper. She has the comedian’s distrust of erudition--and of revealing anything too real for too long. She quotes Thomas Mann, “Solitude gives birth to the original in us all,” but then disingenuously claims not to know what he is talking about. It’s as if admitting to a serious thought automatically equals pretension.

Most thoughts begin philosophically and then end on a show-biz-saturated punch line, some good, some not. “Why war?” she asks. “Why famine? Why Tom Arnold?” Introducing a serious section about finding ethnic roots, she notes, “Either your parents came over on the boat or else they were in the original cast of ‘Dances With Wolves.’ ” On a trip to Armenia to discover her roots, she observes that at the airport you could tell which were the Russian planes--”they had hair under their wings.”

Her most honest portrait is of her mother--divorced, drunk on Christmas Eve, undressed and unloading all kinds of inappropriate information on 12-year-old Andrea, whom she calls “my dolly.” This disturbing scene is the strongest of the evening, but the emotion is cut short when Martin fast-forwards in time to portray herself attending her dying mother. In a sentimental mode, Martin experiences an epiphany--a realization that “you are enough.” While this moment may have been deeply felt in reality, it comes out of nowhere here, apparently in the belief that the listener will simply take it on faith.

“Nude Nude” suffers from comparison to another recent one-woman show in which a TV comedian mined a tale from her own life. In “And God Said, ‘Ha!’ ” Julia Sweeney told a heart-rending story with great courage while remaining organically funny. Martin has not decided which way she wants to go here and is playing both ends against the middle. Bruce Vilanch, the well-known gag writer, has supplied “special material,” which in fact may have helped to make her show less special.

Director Walter Bobbie evens things out by keeping the serious bits light. But, disappointingly, the show never transcends the jokes to take us anywhere we haven’t been before.

Those who miss Martin’s TV characters, however, will not be disappointed. She delivers some familiar, funny routines: the pinched sex therapist who winces every time she has to say “orgasm,” the cleaning lady with the unidentifiable thick accent who turns “hello” in “yel-wo,” and, my favorite, an ebullient Ethel Merman singing “There’s a Kind of Hush.” Martin is in fine form in this territory.

For her encore she brought out the leopard-skin-loving bawd Edith Prickley, who did a marvelous, madcap dance to “Accentuate the Positive.” It was a joyous moment, unusual in that it was totally undivided in intention.

* “Nude Nude Totally Nude,” Canon Theatre, 205 N. Canon Drive, Beverly Hills, Tue.-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 5 and 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m. Ends Nov. 10. $25-$37.50. (310) 859-2830. Running time: 90 minutes.

Presented by Susan Dietz, Joan Stein and Livent Inc. Written and performed by Andrea Martin. Directed by Walter Bobbie. Set Loren Sherman. Costumes Jane Greenwood. Sound John Gromada. Special material Bruce Vilanch. Musical director Seth Rudetsky. Piano Stephen Marzullo. Lighting Spike Lynn, based on lighting designed by Brian Mac Devitt.