A teacher’s lessons are bittersweet

Karen Kay Woods is a petite and bubbly blond with the kind of twinkling, nonthreatening persona that makes her flashes of acerbity all the more startling.

And acerbity there is aplenty in “The Dance of the Lemons,” Woods’ “sour but true” one-woman show, now at Two Roads Theatre, about her experiences as a fledgling middle-school music teacher in Los Angeles County. The title refers to the cynical and expedient manner in which school system bureaucrats deal with flagrantly incompetent administrators, who are seldom fired but are simply shuffled into other schools where they continue their inept reigns unhindered by common sense or professionalism.

The general sourness of this cautionary tale is couched in considerable humor. There are many laughs here, and Woods, under the shrewd guidance of director and co-developer Ann Starbuck, is a gamin juggernaut whose pacing never falters. However, this is no tour de force of theatrical craft. Woods renders her dozen-plus characters competently, but her light-timbered perkiness sometimes blurs the distinctions among her villains and fools.

No matter. “Lemons” functions on two distinct levels, as a breezy entertainment and an important social document -- as neat a distillation of the ills of a corrupt and bloated system as you are likely to encounter. Plunged down the rabbit hole, Woods is a hilariously bemused Alice who takes us on a whirlwind tour into an alternate universe, where madness is rewarded and sanity is actionable. An intrepid and charming reformer, Woods deserves to be heard and heeded. Perhaps the box office would offer discounted tickets to Mayor Villaraigosa and members of the school board. It would be a public service.

-- F. Kathleen Foley

“The Dance of the Lemons,” Two Roads Theatre, 4348 Tujunga Ave., Studio City. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Ends Aug. 11. $20. (866) 811-4111. www.theatermania.com. Running time: 1 hour, 10 minutes.

Along for the trip with groovy Alice

A very curious sensation of bizarre buoyancy sells “Alice in One-Hit-Wonderland” at the Falcon Theatre. This daftly delightful Troubadour Theatre Company take on Lewis Carroll’s classic sends its heroine down the rabbit hole with a riotous slew of Top 40 oddities and yanks us along.

With troupe leader Matt Walker stirring the peppery pot, “Alice” splices elements of the circus, vaudeville, YouTube and the Muppets into the Troubies’ freewheeling formula. Co-director and choreographer Joseph Leo Bwarie’s rocketing dances and musical director Eric Heinly’s hip band, along with eye popping designs, conspire to give Carroll’s opium-addled prose a manic MTV makeover.

Act 1 builds to a raucous Mad Tea Party, where Walker is ideally cast as the Mad Hatter, Beth Kennedy is a lunatic March Hare and Jennie Fahn is a droll Dormouse as they sling cream pies, popcorn and Silly String. Act 2 moves from Alice’s picnic with two guest storybook travelers (Kennedy and the priceless Jen Seifert) to a show-stopping croquet match turned trial. The final lurch into ‘70s sitcom is blissful irreverence.

As Alice, the wonderful Christine Lakin slyly grounds the frenzy, and her colleagues exhibit irresistible moxie. Standouts amid this festive ensemble include Bwarie’s feverish, Devo-driven White Rabbit, Lisa Valenzuela’s brassy, Toni Basil-fueled Queen of Hearts and Guilford Adams and Dan Waskom as “Kung Fu Fighting” Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

Presented in rep with the adult-skewed “OthE.L.O.,” this is the company’s most ambitious effort yet, and cues were sometimes scattershot at the reviewed performance. However, nobody turns onstage mishaps into hilarity like the Troubies. Aided by Jeremy Pivnick’s psychedelic lighting and Sharon McGunigle’s fantastic costumes, their trademark spontaneity remains infectious.

The Mardi Gras-sized Duchess may unnerve tiny viewers, many in-jokes will be over their heads, and some errant blue notes must go. Nevertheless, families comfortable with “Shrek” or “The Simpsons” should find that “Alice’s” delirious abandon charms children and adults alike.

-- David C. Nichols

“Alice in One-Hit-Wonderland,” Falcon Theatre, 4252 Riverside Drive, Burbank. In repertory with “OthE.L.O”; call for times. Ends Aug. 26. $20 to $32.50. (818) 955-8101. Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes.

In Washington’s halls of power

It’s ironic that “One Fell Swoop,” Robert J. Litz’s scathing look at the television news industry and the D.C. power structure, now at the Elephant Theatre, is itself so television-lite. There’s an unmistakable “West Wing” whiff hanging over Litz’s snappy but sometimes manipulative play, which has the kind of plot convolutions that seem geared to keeping us hooked past the next commercial break.

But if “Swoop” falls short of searing indictment, it frequently succeeds as uproarious satire, a popcorn-worthy diversion that consistently entertains while mildly stimulating our collective sense of outrage.

The “A” story of this episodic tale revolves around Caitlin Reese (Megan Dolan), a law professor who once had an affair with her mentor, Richard Barron (Gregory Mortensen), a lifelong liberal and proponent of privacy rights who is now being vetted for the U.S. Supreme Court. Tapped to appear as a legal expert for a TV news show, Caitlin proves a natural pundit, a left-wing champion who is soon going toe-to-toe with such celebrated right-wing hit-women as Ann Carver (Alexandra Hoover), an Ann Coulter clone who likes to play nasty. When right-wing ideologue Sen. Gage (Robert John Brewer) exploits rumors of Caitlin’s affair to smear Barron and block his nomination, Caitlin finds herself at the center of a media maelstrom that could destroy Barron and ravage her fledgling TV career.

On what planet, you may ask yourself, could a man of Barron’s liberal stripe be seriously considered for the Supreme Court? That suspiciously untimely premise leads us to suspect that “Swoop” was actually written during the Clinton administration and trotted out for this world premiere production.

That’s a quibble, though.

Director Christopher Game leads the proceedings with indefatigable crispness, while his wryly knowing actors deliver their pithy patter with the rapid-fire timing of gangsters in an old Cagney movie.

One doubts that real Washington insiders are this uniformly, deviously clever, but if they were, the country doubtless wouldn’t be in such a fix.

-- F.K.F.

“One Fell Swoop,” Elephant Theatre, 6322 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays. Ends Aug. 18. $20. (323) 960-4410. www.plays411.com /swoop. Running time: 2 hours.

When Frederick met Louisa

The premise of “Multiverse” looks forward a few decades to a society controlled by the state through personal isolation and digital intrusion. The kicker is that it’s a romantic comedy, about a reclusive brainiac and the mercurial artist foisted upon him by federal decree. That the clashes of the form come up fresh is because of playwright Rick Robinson, whose sharp invention sparks this future-shocked saga of government-mandated romance.

Successful computer programmer Frederick Gauss (the adept David Nett) hasn’t left his voice-activated apartment for the toxic outdoors in ages. According to law, on his 30th birthday Frederick has to try out a partner.

After video-phoned homilies from his parents (voiced by James Paul Xavier and Sasha Harris) and encouragement from his food service provider (Jerome Anthony Hawkins), Frederick is aghast when his dating-service pick arrives in the human dumb-waiter. Temperamental and unpredictable, earthy Louisa Hadamard (the excellent Shannon Nelson) is anathema to Frederick’s sterile viewpoint. Naturally, her random impulses are just what he needs to de-Gauss.

In director Patty Ramsey’s intimate Lucid by Proxy staging, “Multiverse” honors the comic curveballs Robinson lobs between his characters. Nett and Nelson, married in real life, have an active chemistry that they play against to great advantage, while the genial Hawkins is admirably understated.

Although the Act 2 décor could stand more disarray, the designs are creative, and Jeanette Scherrer’s interstitial apartment voice-overs have the proper dryness. Such flair upgrades “Multiverse” beyond the odd systemic blips. The totalitarian setting feels more like a conceptual hook than a motivating factor, and the climax veers somewhat abruptly into melodrama. Yet the underlying circuitry is engagingly original, which sums up this thinking person’s date show.

-- D.C.N.

“Multiverse,” Paul E. Richards Theater Place, 2902 Rowena Ave., Silver Lake. 8 p.m. Saturdays through Mondays. Ends Aug. 19. $18. (800) 838-3006 or www.lucidbyproxy.com. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.