Angels Can’t Make These One-Acts Fly

In “Winter Shorts 2,” their latest Los Angeles outing, the New York-based Naked Angels offer a cobbled-together roster of one-acts that is uncharacteristically second-rate.

The trouble becomes apparent early on with Theresa Rebeck’s “Great to See You,” a vicious little love triangle awash in mean-spiritedness. In disappointing contrast to Rebeck’s promising full-length comedy “Loose Knit,” this hipper-than-thou manifesto, co-directed by Mary Pat Green and Pamela Grace, casts a pall of pretentiousness over the entire evening.

More problems surface in Pippin Parker’s lame and repetitive “Little Bites,” directed by Josh Hamilton, in which an up-and-coming screenwriter (Joel de la Fuente) breaks some bad news to his ambitious actress girlfriend (the overly frenetic Dina Spybey). Liz Tuccillo’s “Work,” directed by Paul Eckstein, strains our patience with its trumped-up sitcom plot. David Warick and Amy De Bartolomeis’ film noir parody “Past Time” is well-directed by Robert Bella and crisply performed by Marisa Miller and Merrill Holtzman, but takes a too-easy path to laughs.

The evening’s closer, John Sayles’ “New Hope for the Dead,” directed by Charlie Stratton, is a predictable and overwrought curiosity about a failed actress (Leslie Hope) and an “idiot savant” Egyptologist (Taro Alexander) that will vastly disappoint any Sayles fans in the audience.

By far the most timely and genuinely eccentric play on this lackluster bill is Ann Washburn’s “The Tanks Break,” directed by Amanda Charlton, which features a radiantly underplayed Kelly Wolf as a temp worker caught on the front lines of an environmental disaster.

*

* “Winter Shorts 2,” Tiffany Theater, 8532 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood. Wednesday-Saturday, 8 p.m. Ends March 7. $20. (213) 660-8587. Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes.