‘Please Hold’ a body of work

Jonna Tamases covers familiar ground in “Jonna’s Body, Please Hold,” a one-woman show at the Odyssey about Tamases’ struggle with cancer. Other actors have used the solo format to explicate their experiences with cancer, most notably Julia Sweeney in the charming “God Said, Ha!” But whereas Sweeney used a disarming, intimately ironic tone to discuss her ordeal, Tamases takes an unabashedly theatricalized tack.

The central characters in the narrative, co-written by Tamases and Nicholas de Wolff, are the parts of Tamases’ own body, from the little toe to the brain, all distinct and specifically realized entities. Presiding over the whole is a perky switchboard operator of Joan Blondell vintage, who cheerfully coordinates the intricate functions of the organism while dishing the dirt with the various “departments.” The operator’s routine chores turn unexpectedly complicated when some unmannerly foreign visitors -- rapidly proliferating cancer cells -- barge into Jonna’s body for a long and vicious siege.

This witty anthropomorphism allows Tamases to showcase her facility for dialects and comic characters. A regular with the Acme Comedy Theatre, Tamases is also a trained clown who toured with Ringling Bros. -- the training is reflected in this amusing, impressively athletic performance.

Tamases’ director, Randy Schulman, recently received kudos for the long-running “La Gioconda,” a period caper that can best be described as a staged silent movie. The same lissome, mime-like physicality Schulman brought to bear in that piece is evident in this scrupulous production, which showcases the talented Tamases to delightful advantage while making an uplifting statement about her resiliency and humor in the face of crushing adversity.

-- F. Kathleen Foley

“Jonna’s Body, Please Hold,” Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 and 7 p.m. Ends Sept. 28. $22.50-$25. (310) 477-2055. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.

*

‘Jesus Fish’ a healing experience

Hope is in short supply at a Tucson psychiatric hospital. Then a new patient is admitted, a young woman who claims a connection to God and appears to possess healing powers.

Whether she’s the real deal or not, she works at least one miracle: She brings a ray of light to some very grim lives.

Introduced as a one-act play during the 2001 EdgeFest, Rick Robinson’s “School of Jesus Fish” has been expanded to full length for a Lucid by Proxy presentation at Paul E. Richards’ Theater Place in Silver Lake. Realistically staged and vividly performed, the show is full of surprises even as it calls to mind such plays and movies as “Agnes of God” and “Girl, Interrupted,” as well as episodes from the lives of Jesus and Joan of Arc.

Anne (Sara Parry) is admitted to the psychiatric hospital after causing the sort of property damage that Jesus did when he chased the merchants from the temple. Attempts to break through to her by earnest newbie therapist Dr. Ben (David Nett) and pragmatic veteran Dr. Simon (Joseph S. Moser) are interspersed with scenes from the lives of the other patients, including the too-full-of-life Fish (Keaton Talmadge) and Franny (Kyra Zagorsky) and the self-esteem-deprived Sam (Shannon Nelson).

Though Anne seems fairly lucid, her claims of a linkup with God draw an eye-rolling I’ve-heard-that-before response even from her fellow patients. Gradually, though, her warm, comforting manner wins them over. When she appears to be the instrument of others’ miraculous recoveries, the therapists -- who seem to be working a few miracles of their own -- find themselves in a sticky situation.

Audience members sit on the periphery of a blandly institutional room (designed by Nick May) that is whitewashed with fluorescent light. The setting is so real and the performances, under Valerie Rachelle’s direction, are so believable that this rather fantastic story soon seems entirely plausible, raising the question: Should we believe with our minds or our hearts?

-- Daryl H. Miller

“School of Jesus Fish,” Paul E. Richards’ Theater Place, 2902 Rowena Ave., L.A. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends Sept. 14. $15. (818) 786-2229. Running time: 2 hours.

*

‘Dark Room’ needs some creative light

You’d have to search long and hard to find a play more raw and fervid than William A. Davis’ “In a Dark Room” at Theatre/Theater. A harrowing examination of the lingering effects of child abuse on two troubled siblings, the play bristles with acute emotionalism and anguish, not to mention nudity and sexually explicit situations.

Davis, who directs and also appears in a lesser role, is a youthful practitioner, full of passion and hormonal intensity. Unfortunately, while long on ardor, Davis is short on craft, ultimately unable to channel his unleashed torrent into dramatic coherence.

The action revolves around the twitchy, disturbed Alex (Heath Silvercloud), an aspiring writer whose childhood was a hell of neglect and abuse. Alex wants to understand the past by revisiting it, but his sister Jessica (Laura A. Rice) resists reflection, preferring to lose herself in a haze of promiscuity and alcoholism.

The action switches back and forth in time from the present to the past, where we witness the agonizing ill treatment of Alex and Jessica as children, played by Kris Hatfield and Brooke Swift, respectively. Their criminally feckless mother (Claire Kelly) is the chief architect of their misery, allowing her trashy boyfriend (John Bowman) to savage Alex and molest Jessica regularly.

It’s a depressing scenario that ends badly, with plenty of histrionics and gore. Despite its glaring flaws, the play holds our interest, if only for its visceral audacity. But at present, “In a Dark Room” remains an undisciplined first draft.

-- F.K.F.

“In a Dark Room,” Theatre/Theater, 6425 Hollywood Blvd., 4th Floor, Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 6 p.m. Ends Sept. 28. $15. (323) 934-6857. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.

*

‘Thoughts’ lights an explosive fuse

The past throws a long shadow across the present as an African American defense attorney and a Jewish forensic anthropologist prepare testimony during an emotion-charged trial. The forensics expert is a last-minute replacement witness in William Missouri Downs’ “Innocent Thoughts,” so the attorney has little time to bring him up to speed. But they have trouble focusing on the work because their respective histories -- cultural as well as personal -- keep rising up between them.

Presented by Unity Players Ensemble in 1999, “Innocent Thoughts” returns in a presentation at the Stella Adler Theatre that launches the ensemble’s seventh season. Though talky and at times short on credibility, the play is intellectually rigorous as it examines the tensions that sometimes flare between blacks and Jews, even though their communities share so much in common. Among the similarities considered here are the communities’ comparable commitments to culture and tradition, as well as their similar sufferings due to racism.

Under Yvette Culver’s direction, the action believably surges and ebbs as the lawyer and his new witness meet in a blandly institutional conference room (set design by Marco Deleon) in a Chicago courthouse.

The attorney (Spencer Scott) is gregarious but explosive. We soon realize that the outbursts are at least in part because of his conflicted emotions about defending a possibly racist white law officer in the 21-year-old murder of a black man. The forensics expert (Matt Gould) is one of those overly earnest liberals who tries so hard to appear free of prejudice that he ends up stumbling all over himself. Flustered, the men blurt out cultural overgeneralizations that build a wall between them.

At last Friday’s opening, the exchanges drew a few gasps and caused some audience members to shift uncomfortably in their seats -- signs that, imperfect as it might be, the show presses buttons.

-- D.H.M.

“Innocent Thoughts,” Stella Adler Theatre, 6773 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends Sept. 21. $18. (323) 860-3208. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.

*

‘Coffee’ brews a classic mystery

“You cannot fool Hercule Poirot,” the famous shamus warns in Agatha Christie’s “Black Coffee.”

The play, first presented in 1930, puts Poirot on the hunt for the person who slipped poison into the coffee of Sir Claud Amory, an inventor and scientist whose formula for an atomic explosive is missing. It’s classic Christie, craftily directed and mostly well performed at Sierra Madre Playhouse.

Michael Morrison capably commands center stage as the detective, a fussbudget whose sense of humor reveals itself in the little traps he sets for his prey.

As a daughter-in-law with secrets, Nancy Lantis is at once poised and tremblingly vulnerable. Is she being blackmailed by the Italian doctor (Allen Corcorran) who has paid a surprise visit? Why is her husband (Christopher Rydman) behaving so suspiciously? Could anything sinister lurk behind the appearances of the dead man’s sweet-natured, talkative sister (Jinny Wilcott) or scandalous niece (Jessica Hendra)? What about the briskly efficient secretary (Andrea Stradling) or watchful maid (Sharon McGee)?

“Black Coffee,” the first play written by crime novelist Christie, contains many of the elements that continued to define her style: elegant but brooding surroundings (nicely detailed by Paul Anderson and set dresser Ruth Thompson), a host who dies on the verge of making a revelation, suspects who try to divert focus onto someone else and, of course, a steady diet of red herrings. The cookie-cutter formula can become tedious, but director Linda L. Rand and her actors have worked out enough amusing interplay to keep this “Coffee” percolating.

-- D.H.M.

“Black Coffee,” Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2:30 p.m.; also Oct. 2, 8 p.m. Ends Oct. 4. $15. (626) 256-3809. Running time: 2 hours, 35 minutes.