Charming Cast Buoys Overstuffed ‘Wallace’

Notable talent provides the support system for “Women and Wallace” at the Actor’s Lab.

Jonathan Marc Sherman’s fact-based play begins with Wallace (the affecting Josh Zuckerman) and soul mate Nina (Mila Kunis of television’s “That ‘70s Show”) gazing at each other in profile. He intones “I love you” and brandishes a tomato, and the prologue ends.

It is followed by 6-year-old Wallace’s direct address, with Zuckerman’s childlike singsong charming the audience. Then Mom (Heather Avery Clyde) packs Wallace off to school and, as Paul Lohr’s lighting plot suddenly goes red, slits her throat.

The freewheeling narrative traces Wallace’s interactions with the women he fears losing: grandmother (the excellent Barbara Gruen), elementary and high school crushes (Alexandra Westmore), therapist (Clyde), college deflowerer (Nikki Winston) and Nina, arriving during the final quarter for Wallace’s deliverance.

If this sounds like an overstuffed one-act, it is. Sherman writes prismatic sequences of bright wit (Wallace’s school days) and emotional impact (the scenes with Grandma), but the script suffers from premature gestation, Michael Woolson’s impressive direction notwithstanding.

The explicated psychology dominating the dialogue is essentially subtextual, and while Kunis radiates a warmth seldom exploited by her series, her conflict resolution is as abrupt as Wallace’s maternal Sylvia Plath analogies are obvious.

David C. Nichols

“Women and Wallace,” Actor’s Lab, 1514 N. Gardner St., L.A. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends Oct. 6. $15. (323) 856-4200. Running time: 70 minutes.