Love’s Monsters Get One-Act Treatment

The three one-acts in Lee Wochner’s “Monster Stories” at Moving Arts consider the pathology of twisted love, the dichotomy of love-hate relationships and the human monsters that lurk in the dark corners of everyone’s lives. Ambitious and potentially fascinating, Wochner’s playlets range from the provocative to the predictable in this uneven production.

“Visiting Hours,” which opens the bill, depicts the torturous interaction between May (Lisa Temple), a querulous nursing home resident whom we initially believe is demented, and her “son” Ed (Tony DeCarlo), a sly and tormented young man with a hidden agenda. Julie Briggs’ hit-or-miss direction and a stereotypical old-lady turn by Temple, whose age makeup is far too pronounced for this tiny house, don’t detract from the very valid issues that this play poses about the terrifying vulnerability of the elderly to the human predators poised to exploit infirmity for their own ends.

Not as effective is “Jack and I,” a modern-day Jekyll and Hyde story, also staged by Briggs and featuring Mark Kinsey Stephenson as the mysterious “I,” a sexually ambivalent serial slayer who acts out his inner rage through a macho and uncontrollable alter-ego. A rehash with pulp sensibilities, this mannered monologue takes us exactly where we thought it would go, and Stephenson’s finicky, fussy portrayal, while diverting, is a shade too calculated to genuinely engage us.

In the closer, “Animals,” directed by Stephenson, males bash females and vice-versa in a nonlinear montage, while a social realist (Richard Hamner) provides sardonic scientific commentary on the exchanges. Wochner’s wacky treatment of human morality versus animal instinct meanders entertainingly, but never quite coalesces into a comprehensible theme, and we are left wondering who these people are, what their connection is to one another, and why we should care.

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* “Monster Stories,” Moving Arts, 1822 Hyperion Ave., Silver Lake. Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends Aug. 22. $14. (323) 665-8961. Running time: 2 hours.