Working Out Kinks in ‘Last Hairdresser’

“The Last Hairdresser,” Doug Holsclaw’s desultory comedy at the Zephyr, expounds upon the travails of growing up gay in a straight world with little novelty and less craft. Director Danny Scheie, who also plays the narrator and lead, fuels the proceedings with as much madcap energy as he and his capable actors can muster, but Holsclaw’s vehicle is so clunky that many comic opportunities go begging.

The play chronicles the lives, from coming of age to adulthood, of three gay men, Guy (Scheie), Foley (Brian Beacock) and Pere (Andy Steinlen). However, this is really Guy’s story, and Holsclaw’s insistence upon veering from Guy’s first-person musings to the more generic stories of Foley and Pere results in a jerky narrative style that never fully commits to a particular point of view.

It is not until well into Act 2 that the play settles into its natural milieu--the seedy beauty school owned and operated by even seedier Miss Renata (hilarious Alexis Lezin). Schooled in the art of vicious repartee since childhood, Foley and Guy meet at Miss Renata’s and instantly hate one another. Their escalating feud contains the seed of great farce--a sort of “Steel Magnolias” with a kinky twist--and we’re not talking Toni Home Permanents, either. Unfortunately, the play arrives at Miss Renata’s--and the comic point--far too late for the set to take.

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* “The Last Hairdresser,” Zephyr Theatre, 7456 Melrose Ave. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends April 4. $20. (310) 289-2999. Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes.