Comedy blends bite and insight

Can a feminist have a sense of humor?

The question isn’t so much whether a woman can tell or take a joke -- though some in Hollywood, remarkably, still find this point arguable -- but whether feminism can be funny in the tradition of provocative social criticism from Twain to Pryor.

Well, duh -- how about Lily Tomlin, Nora Dunn and Tina Fey, for starters?

Another contender for that roll call is Christine Dunford, whose new solo show, “Out Loud,” combines the kicky shorthand of sketch comedy with the incisive observational details of a first-rate multicharacter solo show a la Danny Hoch or Eric Bogosian. Indeed, Dunford -- a tall, perilously thin blond with a pliable face and a versatile voice -- comes off a bit like a brilliant sketch comic who has bothered to follow her characters past the punch line and blackout.

This means that Damiana, a Eurotrash supermodel preeningly promoting a book on a late-night talk show, gets to venture beyond beauty-as-empowerment sound bites into hilariously ugly territory. Genna, a giddy young ballet student, eventually stops giggling to outline her plan to cash in as a stripper. And a meek professional, Eileen, can slowly unspool a heartbreaking case against the everyday deaths of urban life.

The evening’s most fully realized portrait is of Maybeth, a reality-TV producer who runs her Benedict Canyon home office with a free-associating sense of entitlement and self-absorption that’s somehow as moving as it is cattily cutting.

Director Michelle Danner might have reined in some of Dunford’s more hyperventilating moments, particularly as Genna, but in all it’s a finely honed evening, with a clean, sleek set by Chris Stone and marvelously suggestive lighting by Matthew Pomerantz.

In a superfluous curtain raiser, actor David Rasche tosses off a handful of ironically loungey novelty tunes. Maybe the intention was to make Dunford’s material look that much better by comparison, but her work needs no such favors, let alone any introduction.

-- Rob Kendt

“Out Loud,” Edgemar Center for the Arts, 2437 Main St., Santa Monica. Fridays, 9 p.m.; Saturdays, 8 p.m. No performances Dec. 19-Jan. 3. Ends Jan. 17. $20. (310) 392-7327. Running time: 2 hours.

*

Darker natures are awakened

Christine (Melanie Hawkins) squats in the middle of the floor, her face lighted by only the flashlight she holds, crunching ice cubes with every sign of gustatory pleasure. Quivering with excitement and apparent dread, she plunges her hand into a bowl of icy water for unendurable periods.

So begins “Eighteen,” Allison Moore’s play, a Meadows Basement Theater production, about a bereft and self-loathing teen whose efforts to maintain a perfect outward facade come at a high cost. Christine, whose mother has just died and whose father is in Venezuela on an engineering project, comes to stay with her Uncle Dan (Rob Nagle) and his wife, Marie (Jennifer Bledsoe), while she completes her senior year of high school. An affluent couple whose marriage is apparently blissful, Dan and Marie relate to one another primarily through food (Marie is a gourmet cook) and sex. However, Christine’s arrival awakens appetites of a darker nature.

Around a been-there, done-that story line of “Come Back, Little Sheba” vintage, Moore has woven a tale of subterranean despair threaded with the unexpected. Granted, the play sometimes seems more underdeveloped than intentionally cryptic, but director Jay Dysart largely compensates for that deficit in a taut staging.

The bombastic Nagle and the effectively reserved Bledsoe are excellent, but it is the precocious Hawkins whose intensity staggers us. She is unqualifiedly splendid, a young actor whose career bears watching.

-- F. Kathleen Foley

“Eighteen,” Dorie Theatre at the Complex, 6476 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends Dec. 16. $15. (323) 782-6218. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.

*

‘Twelfth Night’ balancing act

Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” is like a three-seated seesaw, and the fat man usually wins. That is to say, it’s a trick to balance the play’s central love triangle with the two prankish subplots driven by that minor-league Falstaff, Sir Toby Belch. Many productions slight the mistaken romance and let the drunken knight walk away with chunks of scenery in his teeth.

Director Anne McNaughton’s new production doesn’t quite have that problem -- in part because her Toby, Tony Burton, is more a cuddly, red-faced chucklehead than a wild party animal, but mostly because it’s hard to steal a show that’s barely there. The design has a generic sheen, with Esther Blodgett’s colorful costumes striking a familiar note between faux-Moorish and Renaissance Faire and J. Kent Inasy’s imposingly stagey set lighted evenly by Luke Moyer.

With few exceptions, the cast is playing at Shakespeare, not committing to characters. They speak the speeches relatively painlessly, and mostly with understanding, but only Meeghan Holaway as love struck noblewoman Olivia appears to have smoldering depths beneath her glittering surface.

None of the other actors -- and certainly not Maria Kress’ blandly smiling Viola -- give her flint to spark off. The superficial approach ends up serving Philip McKeown’s starchy Malvolio well; in the context of this dully dutiful production, McKeown’s dogged attachment to the obvious at least gets him his laughs. Other performers score some light, grazing comic blows, from Burton’s elfin Toby to Khamara Pettus’ sinuous Feste. But the Bard’s topsy-turvy carnival of confused lust and humiliation has seldom looked so sane and polite.

-- R.K.

“Twelfth Night,” The Company Rep, 5112 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends Dec. 21. $20-22.50. (323) 960-4412. 2 hours, 25 minutes.

*

Performance lives up to the writing

“The Tragedy of King Lear” dominates William Shakespeare’s canon the way Laurence Olivier overshadows other Shakespearean actors. The patriarchal tragedy, in which a pagan ruler’s test of filial devotion results in calamity, is titanic -- Isaac Asimov called it the best thing ever written, and he’s not alone. “Lear’s” ever-insightful narrative corollaries between man’s disorder and nature’s true order are given top priority in the MET Theatre’s revival.

Bruce Katzman’s staging is old-school spare and direct. The execution is handsome, with Victoria Profitt’s set and A. Jeffrey Schoenberg’s costumes a striking blend of raw textures and identifying shades, evoking Ingmar Bergman’s “The Virgin Spring.” String Theory’s arcane-flavored techno music and Michael Leon’s hairstyles are apt; Jake Eberle’s sound and Kathi O’Donohue’s lighting are superb.

The ensemble devours the text whole, but their ferocity is risky. Katzman tends toward metrical overemphasis, which, although laudable, causes disfigures in the rhythms, and Edgar Landa’s unfettered swordplay is unnerving.

Reactions may vary to James Gammon’s ultra-specialized king. At the reviewed performance, he hit the ground booming and stayed thus; his delivery can be described only as Will Geer doing Tallulah Bankhead impersonating a leaf blower.

Gammon has the character’s measure, as his devolving interactive reactions prove, but the monologues will shred his voice at this rate.

Still, Gammon’s explosive plosives are commensurate with the traditions and his finale touching. He shares this legacy with daughters Goneril (Elizabeth Huffman) and Regan (Allison Gammon), whose outre vehemence sets off Saige Thompson’s radiant Cordelia. The interlocking parallel downfall of Gloucester and sons is supreme, with David Agranov’s Edmund brilliant, and William Burns’ paterfamilias and James Tupper’s Edgar are both exemplary.

Steven Klein’s youthful Fool engages, and John Herzog’s Kent suggests Michael Gambon. Eberle’s Albany and Robert Tobin’s Cornwall achieve their respective highs and lows, and Steve Wilcox’s Oswald has great clarity. Such storytelling prowess overcomes occasional risible moments and recommends this “Lear,” which speaks what it feels; not what it ought to say.

-- David C. Nichols

“The Tragedy of King Lear,” MET Theatre, 1089 N. Oxford Ave., L.A. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends Dec. 20. $15. (323) 957-1152. Running time: 3 hours.

*

Untangling contradictions

“I pulled the trigger, but I ain’t sure I killed him.” This refrain contains the key to “Acting Alone,” Nat Colley’s new play at the Elephant Asylum Theatre.

The intervening decades since John F. Kennedy’s murder in Dallas have spawned a subculture that trades on speculation regarding what transpired on Nov. 22, 1963. “Acting Alone” is another matter, an episodic rumination on Kennedy’s assassination that reflects Colley’s clear-eyed wrangle with the tangle of contradictions surrounding Dealey Plaza.

Colley and director Mary McGuire exploit the duality, by having a single actor (the charismatic Scott Connell) switch off as Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald. After a violin elegy from the Kennedy clan’s seneschal (Michael Dempsey, redoubtable), “Acting Alone” opens on Oswald in custody. His cellmate is undercover agent Wagner (David Shofner), who is collaborating with police detective Williams (Shirley Jordan) but uncertain of Oswald’s sole responsibility in the shooting.

Once Jack Ruby thwarts due process, Oswald’s shade goads Wagner into a nonlinear investigation, laced with flashbacks and readings ranging from the Bible to Shakespeare to Kennedy’s inaugural address (“Ask not what your country can do for you ...”).

Wagner’s quest encompasses LBJ and J. Edgar Hoover (Michael Merton); Sam Giancana and Aristotle Onassis (Howard S. Miller); Wagner’s clarinet teacher and Kennedy’s Cuban informant (Jordan); and Jacqueline Kennedy and KGB agent Tchaikovsky (the incisive Carolyn Hennesy).

McGuire’s staging, Brian Benison’s sound and Dana Rebecca Woods’ costumes are resourceful, but the repeated scene transitions halt pacing. At its best, Colley’s wry writing is poetic, yet his architecture is erratic, its symbols crashing on factual constraints. The sharp acting can’t cover up a text more intriguing surrealist essay than realized postmodern play, though conspiracy theorists and Hyannisport watchers should examine its thoughtful message.

-- D.C.N.

“Acting Alone,” Elephant Asylum Theatre, 6320 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends Dec. 7. $25. (866) 379-1745. Running time: 2 hours.