‘Lust & Lunacy’: Veering From the Riotous to the Mundane

“Lust & Lunacy: Evening Blue,” Moving Arts’ sixth annual one-act festival (running in repertory with “Evening Red”), could be subtitled “Eccentrics on Parade.” As buoyant and unpredictable as a Macy’s balloon in a high wind, these insubstantial but entertaining playlets stylishly inaugurate Moving Arts’ new home at Los Angeles Theatre Center’s Studio 5C.

The briefest--and slightest--offering, Werner Trieschmann’s “Failing the Improv,” directed by Melissa Marie Thomas, features John Duncan as a former television writer struggling to teach a couple of clueless housewives (Julie Briggs and Kristi Marie Jones) the principles of improvisation. Briggs goes intrepidly over-the-top in Thomas’ somewhat colorless staging, which belabors the surface oddities of the characters without tapping into their true comic potential.

Micaela Villanueva’s “The Stroller” is a seriocomic look at a family feud in which three sisters (Kim Kolarich, Liesel Kopp and Robin Johnson) work themselves into a pitch of rage over a trivial pretext--an infant’s stroller. Subbing for cast member Chuti Tiu, Johnson was on book for the performance seen by this writer--and despite her valiant efforts and Greg Davis’ otherwise crisp staging, the comic rhythms suffered a bit as a result.

Directed by Julia Hamilton, “The Clawfoot Interviews,” also by Trieschmann, is a romp for Richard Ruyle, who plays a crop of oddballs--all potential buyers for a claw-foot bathtub being sold by Olivia (Gladys Hans).

Act 2 starts off with Ron Klier’s gut-bustingly funny “Pigs in Zen,” directed by Ruyle, about two sexually ambivalent buddies (Tony DeCarlo and Tim Orona) trying to expand their horizons in a gay bar. Surreally raunchy, their boneheaded discourse is as chilling as it is hilarious.

And if you thought you couldn’t laugh any harder, brace yourself for Greg Kalleres’ “My Africa,” directed by Michael Cooper. Among the rib-tickling cast, Keith Sellon-Wright shines as a stick-in-the-mud white guy, just back from an African vacation, who fancies himself a born-again Masai. When Sellon-Wright enters in full tribal gear--with an indiscreet southern exposure--you will fall on your spear.

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* “Lust & Lunacy: Evening Blue,” Moving Arts, Los Angeles Theatre Center, Studio 5C, 514 S. Spring St., Los Angeles. Thursday-Nov. 14 and Nov. 19-21. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. $15. (213) 485-1681. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.