Dual Comedies Try to Pierce Loneliness

As a perch for night owls, “One Hour of Surf and Soap: Two Romantic Comedies” may be a little too slender to warrant a separate flight. However, this brisk, unpretentious freebie makes an agreeable coda to the Colony Studio Theatre’s mainstage production of “The Matchmaker.”

“No Soap” and “Icebergs,” two new thematically linked one-acts by Robert Canning, are aimed at mature audiences in the best non-prurient sense of the term. Leapfrogging the foibles of youth that fuel so many romantic comedies, both pieces focus on piercing the veil of isolation and loneliness that seems endemic to contemporary middle-aged singles.

“No Soap,” by far the sharper piece, is a “Love Letters”-style epistolary duet based on a true story reported in the London Times. It chronicles the correspondence between a hotel guest (John Ross Clark) increasingly frustrated at the daily accumulation of unwanted little soap bars and the housekeeper (Barbara Passolt) charged with the sacred duty of enforcing hotel policy. Under D. Ewing Woodruff’s sensitive direction, the delicately evolving human connection between the two adversaries blossoms in a surprisingly touching finale to their loony predicament.

Like barnacles, predictability and an overabundance of movie references encrust the bow of “Icebergs,” the opener. Far too obvious in its handling of two unattached women on an Alaskan cruise, it comes as no surprise that the more flamboyant and seemingly self-assured of the pair (Lori Thimsen) runs for cover at the prospect of risking emotional hurt, while her mousy companion (Charmaine Budaska) proves the most open to new experience. “Matchmaker” holdovers will appreciate the tie-in through a voice-over cameo by ship’s Capt. Dolly Levi (Jodi Carlisle).

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* “One Hour of Surf and Soap,” Colony Studio Theatre, 1944 Riverside Drive, Silver Lake. Fridays, Saturdays, 10:45 p.m.; dark Oct. 31. Ends Nov. 8. Free; no reservations necessary. (213) 665-3011. Running time: 55 minutes.