Two of Eight Hit the Mark in ‘Leaf-Lets’ at Theatre Geo

There’s at least one very good reason to see “Leaf-lets,” the new one-act festival at Theatre Geo in Hollywood, and her name is Moira Quirk.

In “Eden ‘96,” Steve Silverman’s sly update of Genesis directed by Marla Cotovsky, the aptly named Quirk plays a post-feminist, British-accented Eve who sees nothing wrong with having the finer things in life, be they forbidden fruits or cellular phones. When Lot’s wife happens to call in for advice, the marvelously expressive Quirk interrupts an argument with her slow-witted Adam (Cedric Duplechain) to exhort, “You go, girl! And don’t look back!”

But aside from Quirk’s energetic kick of a performance, which closes this uneven eight-pack of short plays, “Leaf-lets” is running low on assets. The half-dozen very modest pieces that form the bulk of this show ultimately suffer from inevitable comparison to the remaining pair of far stronger scripts, including Silverman’s.

The other standout is “Dear Kenneth Blake,” Jacquelyn Reingold’s bittersweet look at the attenuated romance between Tina (Susan Fukuda), a Cambodian immigrant, and her pen pal Kenneth (a very effective James Lurie), an incorrigibly cranky homeless man who lives, works and rants on a farm commune. Although the characters verge perilously close to stereotypes, director Geo Hartley’s funny, touching production shows how intimacy can bud even in the most unlikely times and places.

A couple of the offerings strive too hard for insight or provocative effect. Murphy Guyer’s “Loyalties” (directed by Hartley) gives viewers a secret test in political ethics by having a family (Katrina Carlson, Tim Diamond, Darin Singleton and Laura Skill) passionately debate patriotism--and then by undoing any superficial assumptions with a shocking, O. Henry-like coda. Because Guyer has so carefully stacked his deck, though, most viewers will probably feel more irritated than provoked.

Grant Gottschall’s “Five Stones” (directed by Andrew Craig) is a grim, anticlimactic vignette about a quintet of prisoners who conspire to kill one of their own, evidently as part of a scheme to draw attention to their poor living conditions. None of it seems to make a lot of sense, but the actors (Arthur Hartunian, Kevin Hunt, Howard S. Miller, Tom Ritter and Cliff Weissman) get to raise their voices and puff their chests out a lot.

The rest of the pieces are slighter still. While Irene Roseen is thoroughly persuasive as a spoiled matron in “Mother to Mother,” Marilyn & Richard Herlan’s script about an ill-fated lunch date between two mothers whose children are dating is not (Wendy Worthington directed). Eric R. Pfeffinger’s “Possession” (directed by Michael Erger) is sitcom-ish piffle about a woman (P.B. Hutton) who enlists a priest (James Geralden) to reform her cheating boyfriend Gabe (Steven Lloyd Williams).

Josh Schiowitz’s “Partners in Bridge” is an amiable but thin revenge fantasy in the spirit of “First Wives Club,” involving a catty, card-playing brood of middle-aged hausfraus (Sharon Ernster directed), while Danny Casillas’ “Tuesdays at Mikey’s,” directed by Schiowitz, repeats just about every known cliche concerning the impossibility of finding true love in gay bars.

* “Leaf-lets,” Theatre Geo, 1229 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood. Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Ends Nov. 6. $15. (213) 466-1767. Running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes.