Double Bill of One-Acts

In the first scene of “Jukin’,” a woman in a sequined dress sings a cappella. She’s supposed to be belting out a jazz standard, but she so embellishes the melody--she’s more Whitney Houston than Sarah Vaughn--that the song is lost.

That’s the same problem that plagues “Jukin’ ” as a whole. The new one-act play by R.C. Thompson at the Bitter Truth Theatre gets so wound up in its details and plot twists that it loses track of its storytelling.

The gist of the play is this: Baby Girl (Nakia Ra-Shay Burrise), who has become a successful jazz singer in Chicago, returns to North Carolina to settle an old debt. But the owner of the local juke joint, Ike (Cisco X. Drayton), wants more than his $150 back--he wants revenge.

Burrise has a nice physical presence, showing her girlish past one minute, and her adult confidence the next. Her voice changes, too, though not as convincingly. (The opening and closing songs are performed by Crystala Blackcreek, not Burrise.) Burrise’s North Carolina accent comes off as too contrived--though part of that stems from the awkward faux-Southern grammar in the script.

Ike is one big, mean SOB, and Drayton endows him with the appropriate menace. He barks and booms, overpowering everyone else on stage. But it falls to him to relay the play’s entire back story: how Baby Girl’s mother and her aunt, Sistah Eunice (Erika Cohen) worked for him as whores, how he lost his string of juke joints, how Baby Girl ran off before he could get his hands on her, too. This becomes one of those absurd expository scenes. Ike spells everything out to Eunice and Baby Girl, even though they already know the whole story.

But, ah, nobody knows the whole story. Those twists are revealed by Eunice, who is forced to fit a year’s worth of soap opera turns into the last five minutes. It all strains patience, if not credulity.

The second play on the bill, “Slow Fade to Black,” handles its story more successfully. Brian Richard Mori’s one-act play is akin to short fiction, packing a lot into a small slice of life.

The time is 1936 and a young black actor (Roscoe C. Freeman) is trying to content himself with the insulting comic-relief roles he has been given in Hollywood movies.

The two-scene structure shows how he catches hell from both sides--whites and blacks. In the first, he is at rehearsal, where a ridiculously puffed-up star’s every whim is catered to. Sandey Grinn is hilarious as the director, whose instructions to Freeman are, essentially, “Act like a moron.”

So Freeman rolls his eyes and grins stupidly. The scene smartly and accurately targets the racism in early Hollywood films. The second half is an argument between Freeman’s character and a janitor (Simon Williams, who also plays Deacon in “Jukin’ ”) who saw the rehearsal. The janitor upbraids the actor for selling out his race, for being willing to play “coons, Toms and bucks” for his steady paycheck.

Director Tony Mosley could have done more here. Freeman sits at a dressing table with Williams behind him, so they hardly interact. Freeman, who otherwise gives a satisfying performance, is given nothing to do in this scene except pile on layers of makeup. In both plays, Williams shows a tendency to mumble, rendering whole lines indiscernible.

The scene runs a bit long, and a few lines--such as “I’m damned if I do, and damned if I don’t”--are a little too obvious. Still, the point is made: Is the actor obliged to help himself or his people, and why is it impossible to do both?

BE THERE

“Jukin’ ” and “Slow Fade to Black” at the Bitter Truth Theatre, 11050 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood. Saturday, 8 p.m., Sunday, 9 p.m., through Oct. 26; and Friday-Saturday, 8 p.m., Sunday, 7 p.m., Oct. 31-Nov. 16. $12; $10 seniors. (818) 755-7900.