‘Sink Eating’ Doesn’t Quite Satisfy

Sink eating is “just like having dinner, except without plates and good food,” explains a character in Ken LeZebnik’s new comedy, “Sink Eating,” produced by Marlow Evans Productions at the Matrix Theater. Nine members of a small-town summer stock company nosh in the communal kitchen, but LeZebnik ties them together via monologues. All the potentially interesting scenes happen off stage, only to be duly and dully reported to the refrigerator.

Rose Portillo’s direction keeps the pace moving--not easy when four actors are double cast. The technician, Peter (Alan Woolf), starts the play off by burning incense to appease the kitchen gods as he likens teching to Napoleonic warfare.

Patrick O’Connell and Kate Fuglei portray two different couples--the married-with-one-child Amy and Harry and the onetime lovers chain-smoking Ellen and often inebriated Mookie. The slightly swishy Farley (James Gleason) forgets his once lofty aspirations by downing Jack Daniels, served up offstage by Roy (also Gleason), a lonely bachelor who also has failed to make it big. Miriam (April Grace) color-coordinates her food while Drusilla (Grace) chows down at KFC.

The new, young unseen David is an awful actor but has the leads as the company readies to open “Romeo and Juliet” and “West Side Story” on the same day.

Despite Sandy Adams’ colorful set and some fine characterizations, LeZebnik’s piece fails to satisfy. Like eating on the run, it serves up some funny or moving bits but not the sustenance that builds an idea into more than a catchy concept.

* “Sink Eating,” Matrix Theatre, 7657 Melrose Ave. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends Oct. 22. $17.50. (323) 655-TKTS. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.