‘Maps of City & Body’: Memories & Identity

“My body is like a map and I know where I have been,” explains Denise Uyehara in her solo piece, “Maps of City & Body,” at Highways, presented in conjunction with the Mark Taper Forum’s Asian Theater Workshop.

On a bare stage, Uyehara recounts a performance piece in which she left 237 objects in public places in Finland. Each had a tag with a return address and a description of something a person had lost--”romantic notions” or a “cousin to drugs.” Items returned were lost again, creating a cycle of losers and finders and memories.

Memories create identity, and flickers of revelations come when old memories are reconsidered. As an uncomprehending child, Uyehara recalls an old Jewish neighbor’s arms bared, revealing tattoos that are “blue like varicose veins.” A childhood friend teaches a crayon game that suggests child molestation.

She comments on how Asian American women are forced to make illogical choices when “the community says there is no violence in this house. Are you going to be a feminist or a person of color?” Under the sensitive direction of Chay Yew, there’s a lyrical quality to movement that fits the writing, and Lee B.’s simple projected images on white walls are generally effective.

Not all the experiences fit cohesively. The short reference to child molestation is left to hang in the air. A riff on how women can have orgasms covertly in public doesn’t tie in well.

Yet Uyehara’s concept of body memory and identity is intriguing in its refusal to clearly set up judgmental boundaries about sexuality and ethnicity. Instead, the patterns of movement and words swirl on the bare stage and leave room for thought.

* “Maps of City & Body,” Highways, 1651 18th St., Santa Monica. Friday-Saturday, 8:30 p.m.; Sunday, 2:30 p.m. $15. (310) 315-1459. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

‘Millennium House’ Riffs on Y2K Chaos

“Millennium House” is a wacky theatrical evening performed in a 1908 Craftsman-style house. Greeted by facilitators (Vince Fazzi, Tina Fells, Stacey Levno, Thomas Meier and Dalia Vosylius) who dance, offer back massages and perform clever bits of magic, a limited number of guests are treated to champagne and nibbles before being led in, out and around the house. At various sites (including installations by John Measures and Guillermo Irrgang), Blue Palm (Jackie Planeix and Tom Crocker) presents small, quirky skits relating to and laughing at the Y2K.

Each vignette begins at midnight on Dec. 31, 1999. A lawyer, about to announce his engagement to the senior partner’s daughter, gets stuck in a Manhattan elevator with a very pregnant cleaning lady. At a mosque in Ankara, a woman who gets her “religious philosophy from ‘The Lion King’ ” confronts an academic Muslim who wonders “why you Westerners call it the millennium and you expect the rest of the world to do the hokey-pokey?”

In a telegraph office on the Normandy coast, a French woman and a British man mourn the death of dash-dot and the rise of dot-com. A young couple’s extreme adventure vacation might make a great screenplay if they survive the hungry natives. Two young lovers, one in Berkeley and the other in Berlin, wax poetic on a limited vocabulary.

For all their skewering of love and lust, the Blue Palm duo projects romantic whimsy. With the exception of a ditty on boyfriends, they offer insightful, well-written commentary and confident, often comical physicality. If you can forget the Y2K panic, this innovative performance will help you face the new century with a smile.

* “Millennium House,” 3418 Winslow Drive, Silver Lake. Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends Dec. 4. $15-$20. (323) 663-2683. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

Father-Son Story at Heart of ‘Mussolini’

Marco Greco’s entertaining solo show “Behind the Counter With Mussolini,” at the Tamarind Theatre, is a fascinating look at one man’s Italian American education in the ways of women, manhood and mozzarella under the tutelage of his bombastic, deli-owner father.

The father idolizes Benito Mussolini and creates his own fascist domain behind a deli counter. Greco’s at his best making mozzarella (that the audience gets to sample during intermission), bragging and bullying as his father and then switching to the son, who’s at first terrified and later becomes heir apparent to this little kingdom.

The second act is less assured as Greco recounts his maturing into gold chains and unbuttoned shirts and a cocky sexual confidence that borders on slimy. His quest to find his own path meanders into college and then back to the deli under his father’s continued domination until Greco finally walks away.

Under the adept direction of Stephen Adly Guirgis, Greco’s self-described “folk tale” is a fun journey about the tricky love between fathers and sons and mozzarella.

* “Behind the Counter With Mussolini,” Tamarind Theatre, 5919 Franklin Ave., Hollywood. Thursdays-Sundays, 8 p.m. (310) 289-2999. Running time: 2 hours.