Childhood Pranks Rankle in ‘Dance Upon Nothing’

Bojo (Jason Waters) has been a bad, bad boy and now wants to hang himself. His brother, Davey (Andy Hirsch), is hoping to make some big bucks, writing about his brother’s potential infamy. In a full-skirted dress and pumps, their perfectly coiffed mother frets. Their rigid father fumes. But this family’s dysfunctional relationships don’t end there.

In Greg Suddeth’s “Dance Upon Nothing,” a Blue Sphere Alliance production at the Lex, the parents may mambo but the boys stand stagnating at the sidelines in this darkly humorous tale.

A sinister suggestion of bad deeds and cruelty surfaces, but under the astute direction of Anthony Barnao these youthful failings are funny.

Bojo’s aspirations to Beatles-type fame led his parents into seemingly civil disagreements. But in the 1980s, Bojo is haunted by his parents and by a childhood of mean-spirited acts by his brother.

Waters plays Bojo as a repressed man who’s slightly delusional--perhaps even criminally insane, but he’s not a bully. Hirsch’s Davey is a regular guy who practices more common types of cruelty.

This won’t have you dancing in the aisles (although you may leave humming some Beatles tunes), but it does provide some black-humor chuckles.

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“Dance Upon Nothing,” the Lex, 6760 Lexington Ave., Hollywood. Tuesdays-Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Ends Sept. 26. $12. (323) 957-5782. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.