‘Fireflies’ Covers Range of Emotions

“There Used to Be Fireflies” in Hollywood, a longtime resident fondly recalls. The fragile exoskeleton of Tinseltown illusion may have been crushed by grim reality, but the poignant, idiosyncratic romance of the old, the crazy, the passive and the confused glimmers on in Charlie Adler and Garin Wolf’s amusing serio-comedy at Theatre/Theater.

Set under the garish billboard of Andromeda, an almost-nude busty brunet with strategically placed stars, this collection of short vignettes and snippets of life ranges from wistfully sad to painfully funny. Adler, with minimal usage of props, successfully tackles an odd assemblage of 11 characters--a Midwestern mother with two kids in tow who is out to “rack up some memories,” a nearly finished transsexual, a pregnant skinhead, a former stuntman, a Polish Jew who fled the Nazis, a suicidal cook and a doughnut man who is in love with a woman he sees for only 18 minutes every day.

Beginning slowly, the piece seems almost ho-hum conventional until the small twists tweak interest and momentum builds as these disparate lives briefly intersect over a nine-day period. The plotting does become a bit heavy-handed toward the end, but this is a minor quibble.

Director Chuck Swenson helps Adler strike diverse and humorously nuanced characterizations. Not an easy task when the audience must imagine a burly man like Adler as a housewife on vacation or a frail rest home resident--yet somehow, it all works.

* “There Used to Be Fireflies,” Theatre/Theater, 1713 Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, 8 p.m. Ends Dec. 6. $19-$24. (213) 466-1767. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.