A Revelatory Journey Into a ‘Mind’s “I” ’

A mind’s eye looks at the world in a very personal way. “Mind’s ‘I,’ ” an evening of monologues and sketches at Stages in Anaheim, allows its characters to look inside themselves to find the message each wants to get out to the world. It’s an interesting idea that only sometimes comes off.

With segments written by Terry McNicol, Nick Boicourt Jr., Mitchel Faris, Adam Clark and Matt Johnson and directed by McNicol, the evening is guided in a rambling, sort of early-’70s manner by “hostess” Randi Stern.

Her purpose as she wanders the stage is to explain, in an accent that varies unaccountably from Spanish to Irish, the dream-like concept of the show, to awaken the dormant actors around her for their moments as images in her hallucinatory trip and to bridge the evening’s bits. But her dialogue is too vague and scattered, and her manner too casual, to have much effect.

There are a couple of theatrical and arresting sketches that make the evening pass with some sense of merit. Clark is at first amusing as a replica of Disneyland’s audio-animatonic Abraham Lincoln, with mechanical movements and a droning voice reciting the Gettysburg Address. Clark eventually becomes a more realistic, more textured Lincoln explaining what he really meant by his speech and how its meaning is even more valid today. It’s an impressive idea, well-wrought and performed.

Boicourt’s “Two Boards and a Passion” also is well conceived. It’s a paean to life in the theater but has less import than some of the other bits.

Dave Amitin is effective as a nut in a rainbow-hued vinyl wig who gets his 15 minutes of fame by flashing biblical messages at public events, then realizes he can only accomplish his task by planting bombs.

He’s even better in the evening’s one really hilarious moment, by Matt Johnson, as a horny young man in a movie theater with his girlfriend who decides to speed his seduction with his popcorn bucket; it’s a sight gag best seen and not described.

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The show’s highlight, though, and its most intriguing monologue, is Clark’s voyage into the secret life of an obsessed mime. Clark uses the piece, which he wrote, to explain the fanatic and terror-haunted among us, and it is concise and powerful. It’s worth wading through the show’s weaker entries to see.

Boicourt gives a good account in McNicol’s “Dead Man Speaks,” about a man who dies and returns to life with an entirely new outlook. Amitin, the amusingly blase John Gaw, Mitchel Faris and Jennifer Bishton bring entertaining life to Faris’ “Dawning of a New Age,” about the Great White Conquering Plague that stole innocence and beauty from the world’s simple natives.

Collections like this seldom maintain high quality throughout, and this is no exception. But some of its moments are above average and it is most often entertaining, sometimes even revelatory.

* “Mind’s ‘I,’ ” Stages, 1188 N. Fountain Way, Suites E & F, Anaheim. 8 p.m. today; 7 p.m. Sunday. $10. Ends Sunday. (714) 630-3059. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.

Randi Stern: Hostess

A Stages evening of monologues and short scenes. Produced by Brian Kojac. Directed by/sound design: Terry McNicol. With Nick Boicourt Jr., Adam Clark, Dave Amitin, Jennifer Bishton, Mitchel Faris, Roger Freeman, John Gaw and Rick Lawhorn. Lighting design: Rick Lawhorn. Technical direction: John Gaw.