How Women See Themselves

The plight of aging or flawed women in a youth-obsessed society is the subject of “The Most Massive Woman Wins” and “39*21*50,” two thematically linked one-acts being presented by the Theatre District at the Cast.

Set in a liposuction clinic, Madeleine George’s “Massive” is a highly stylized piece that samples the emotionally charged interactions of four women awaiting surgery. The action flows freely, from present-day chatter back in time to the girls’ playground rhyming games, barbed and telling snippets of verse that already poke fun at those who do not conform.

Under the direction of Mario Lescot, the cast--Alice Ensor, Shannon Hunt, Jessica Learned and Nancy Petersen--manages some finely tuned ensemble work. Unfortunately, George’s disappointingly humorless piece errs on the side of excess and hyperbole. A succession of anguished monologues goes increasingly over the top in the most blatantly manipulative sense. One sequence, in which a character recalls sneaking out of her mother’s wedding to gorge on an enormous wedding cake, seems embarrassingly strained, more a tall tale than a physically plausible reminiscence.

Lescot also directs the closing piece, Max Riley’s “39*21*50,” which features Ensor, Hunt and Petersen, joined by Suzie Kane as a good ol’ gal who accepts the ravages of time with more equanimity than her fellows. The action is set in a restaurant, where two older women meet for lunch and begin to gradually converse with the younger women at the next table. Their conversation is about--what else?--the march of time, the pull of gravity and the lure of cosmetic surgery.

Their prattle, while hardly earth-shattering, is amusingly slice-of-life and believable, a fly-on-the-wall perspective that captures the way women really talk and the issues that concern them.

“The Most Massive Woman Wins” and “39*21*50,” the Theatre District at the Cast, 804 N. El Centro, Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends March 10. $10-$15. (323) 957-2343. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.