Punch Lines Taint Absurdist Plays

The best absurdist plays combine powerful ideas about society with a skewed, often comic approach. They’re meant to be fun with a solid intellectual punch beneath the surface.

This is not the case with three of the four “absurdist” one-acts presented by Rude Guerrilla Theater Company. They are by Keith Neilson, a Cal State Fullerton English and creative writing teacher, and although they are often amusing and usually intriguing, they lack the big ideas that make absurdist theater work.

In these three world premieres and one West Coast premiere, there is much happening to catch the eye and imagination, but little message behind the madness.

To the plays’ benefit, the direction and performances throughout are worthy and look good.

In the show’s nightcap, “Answer Machine,” Richard Corrie (Matt Cook) rises, bathes and dresses for the day while listening to the messages coming in on his answering machine. They are full of fun, pathos and a sincere interest in his well-being and social life.

The callers, including his mother (Natalie Walker), best friend (Lee Jalube), a car salesman (David Cramer), a bookie (Stephen Wagner), and a creditor (Anna-Marie Abell), walk onstage as they leave their first message and remain there to make second and third calls and listen to the other callers. Corrie never picks up the phone.

There is a clever punch line, but the play leaves the feeling of a “Saturday Night Live” sketch.

That’s one of Neilson’s problems. Three of the plays have punch lines serving as the point of the piece. Absurdity leads merely to a gag.

“Spindry,” which opens the production, is about a housewife (Abell) who enters bedraggled and limping, but she perks up when her couch-potato husband enters and plunks himself in front of the TV with a beer. Abell is a delight, cavorting and stripping to the barest essentials, having a frenzied moment of high passion as her washer and dryer bounce her about like tossed salad. Dave Barton and Cramer stand beside the machines, describing the action as if it were a sporting event. It’s a lot of fun, but the punch line is too absurd for even absurdist theater.

In the weakest piece, “The Death of the Virgin,” Neilson sets a violently temperamental artist (Alexander Rodriguez) against an equally volatile model (Julie Jagusiak). Both overact.

He hollers at her, she screams back. He poses her in the style of several famous paintings and finally as the dead Virgin in Caravaggio’s masterpiece, at which time he strangles her and admires her beautiful dirty feet, kissing them and her. The punch line is less absurdist than vaudeville sketch.

The best of the plays is “Hades Bobbin’,” which is weightier and has the advantage of not having a punch line. It examines the nature of power, personal and political.

Several people have answered an ad and find themselves worrying over a Mr. Ringler, who seems to have burned himself badly. Or has someone burned him?

Natalie Walker shines in this as Della, a calm survivalist, and Wagner is strong as Choke, a scarred victim who claims to have burned Ringler. Lee Jalube also has some good moments as Pierce, who bullies his way into power in the group.

Barton’s direction of “Hades” is intriguing. He also directed “Answer Machine” with gusto, but Cook’s direction of “Spindry” and Renee Gallo’s direction of “Virgin” are unfocused.

“Hades Bobbin’ ” is interesting and rich and almost qualifies as absurdist, but the other three one-acts are simply absurd.

SHOW TIMES

“Dirty Laundry and Dead Virgins,” Empire Theater, 200 N. Broadway, Santa Ana. Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2:30 p.m. Ends Sunday. $12 to $15. (714) 547-4688. Running time: 2 hours.