‘Brooklyn’ Serves a Slice of Italian With Vitality

“There’s two kinds of people in the world: Italians, and people who wish they were.” This observation typifies “West of Brooklyn,” a 68 Cent Crew production at the Space Theatre in Hollywood.

Writer-producer Ronnie Marmo--who also plays emotionally isolated protagonist Sebastiano “Sebi” Pascuzzi--sets the action in Los Angeles, where transplanted Brooklynites scramble for a piece of the Hollywood pie, usually at the pizzeria of paternal surrogate Papo (the convincing Robert Costanzo).

Others in Sebi’s crew include his younger brother Jimmy (the deft Jerry Ferrara), tough girl Donna (the vivid Angela Pupello), and aspiring crooner Frankie (director-designer Danny Cistone).

Into this expletive-laced atmosphere comes Madison (the delicious Dany Daurey), a wealthy wounded bird with whom Sebi is instantly smitten. A comedy of bad manners develops, until tragic events imperil the romance of the attracted opposites.

Cistone’s staging impressively negotiates the tiny venue, his inventive designs moving from the Hollywood Hills to the hills of Sellinunte with brio. The cast is appealing, with Marmo and Daurey generating palpable sparks, and their compatriots all authentically amusing.

Judging by audience reaction, such vitality counters the discrepancies of Marmo’s script, whose form and content expose its screenplay origins. Act 1 counts 20 scenes, explicating information more suited to subtext, and the tragedy’s arrival at intermission is jarringly melodramatic. But given the property’s crowd-pleasing properties, Marmo might just get a development deal, so he’s already ahead of the Tinseltown shell game.

David C. Nichols

“West of Brooklyn,” Space Theatre, 665 N. Heliotrope, Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 and 8 p.m. Ends Aug. 11. $15. (323) 769-5800. Mature audiences. Running time: 2 hours.

*

Picnique,’ an Eclectic Hybrid of Wit, Whimsy

In “Cirque Picnique” at the Sacred Fools Theater, Tina Kronis and Richard Alger once again display the wit, whimsy and rigor that distinguished “Dumbshow,” their most recent previous production with the Fools.

It’s no coincidence that the creative duo’s production company is named Theatre Movement Bazaar. The typical Kronis and Alger production is a marketplace of movement--riotous, exotic and packed with an eclectic display of goods. A hybrid of dance, theater and performance art, “Cirque Picnique” was inspired by William Inge’s “Picnic,” as well as other “Cold War texts” ranging from McCarthy hearing transcripts to Betty Crocker commercials.

The dialogue is nonlinear and cryptic, fraught with period paranoia. A blank-faced woman pronounces, “My deepest fulfillment is food preparation and housekeeping.” Two men in suits react with alarm to the sound of a ringing telephone. Three men, perhaps government functionaries, obliquely discuss the prerogatives of power.

If that sounds dry, it isn’t. Kronis directs with firm hand and tongue in cheek, lacing her austere staging with moments of telling humor.

Obvious lampoons of the era’s gender stereotypes abound. To the sound of snappy music, a man removes his perfectly starched white shirt, only to reveal another white shirt underneath, and another and another, in cartoonish succession. Prostrate women are picked up by men and placed carefully on their feet, only to flop lifelessly to the ground as soon as the men leave their sides.

The production design by Kronis and Alger is first-rate, particularly the sound, a perky blend of cha-cha and dissonance that is an effective counterpoint to the atmosphere of underlying dread.

A crack ensemble brings Kronis and Alger’s creative vision to full life.

From the opening scene, in which the performers simply walk across the stage at different gaits, to the more intricately choreographed sequences, the actors display such precision and purpose, even their eye movements seem syncopated.

F. Kathleen Foley

“Cirque Picnique,” Sacred Fools Theater, 660 N. Heliotrope Drive, Hollywood. Tuesdays-Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 17, 11 p.m.; Sunday, Aug. 18, 3 p.m. Ends Aug. 21. $10. (310) 281-8337. Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes.

*

‘Coming Attractions’ a Satirical Sign of Times

Manny Alter may not be the world’s most successful talent agent, but he knows potential when he sees it, and he currently sees it in the novice gunman who’s locked in a hostage standoff with police. Manny figures that if he invents a creepy new image for the young thug and sends him out to get a few murders under his belt, the kid could be a star.

The scary thing about this grim little scenario, as envisioned in Ted Tally’s early ‘80s satire “Coming Attractions,” is that it’s awfully close to the truth. In a stylish revival by Theatre Neo, it tickles some chilling laughs out of the American tendency to treat criminals as celebrities.

Tally’s humor (which is sprinkled with brief musical interludes by Bruce Sussman and Jack Feldman) gets too goofy at times, and his testing of boundaries sometimes steps over the line into bad taste. But Matt Kirkwood’s staging is so slick that the problems don’t stick.

Matthew Scarpino’s blank-walled set places all of the action in what looks, fittingly, like a television studio. Simple yet evocative adjustments in David E. Miller’s lighting and Jeff Scott’s sound design turn this artificial environment into everything from the stage of the Miss America pageant to a seashore painted blood-red at sunset.

As Manny coaches his client to top billing in news reports and orchestrates a fiendish appearance at that Miss America pageant, actors Michael E. Dempsey, as Manny, and Tripp Pickell, as fresh-faced killer Lonnie Wayne Burke, reveal some surprising vulnerabilities. This helps to keep audience members engaged--even a little empathetic--rather than just disgusted.

Julie Wittner draws the biggest laughs with some, um, unconventional sign language as she speaks and signs her way through a Miss America speech, while a gag involving an Arab terrorist stand-up comic--performed by Greg Albanese--is so outrageous, given the current world situation, that the audience is almost too stunned to respond. Michael Merton, Courtney Vine, Ursula Whittaker and Karl T. Wright provide solid support in multiple scene-setting roles.

Daryl H. Miller

“Coming Attractions,” Theatre Neo at the Hudson Avenue Theatre, 6537 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends Aug. 17. $18. (323) 769-5858. Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes.

*

‘Fairy Tale Engineers’ a Hackneyed Adult Fable

Once upon a time, in the land of Hollywood, the villagers of Theatre of NOTE decided to enact a fable for adults called “The Fairy Tale Engineers.”

The story was set in a puppet theater that had become a late-night refuge for a sad young woman and a sad young man who worked there. Hilda (Jennifer Ann Evans) clandestinely slept in the theater because her home was haunted by memories of her dead lover, Fanny. Eddie (Richard Werner) showed up in the wee hours to work on props and effects for the puppet shows.

In Hilda’s dreams, Fanny (Rebecca Gray) returned to finish the fairy tale that she had been writing at the time of her death. Eddie was transformed into the story’s protagonist: a young man who ventures into the land of storks to try to acquire a baby. The tale vaguely reflected their lives: Hilda wanted a child; Fanny was noncommittal; Eddie had an outright fear of such responsibility.

Alas, the real-life writer, Brian Howrey, used hackneyed allegories--about being the author of your life and making your own kind of music--to tell his story. And for some unfathomable reason, he called for long stretches of action to be performed in the nude.

The arty pretentiousness worked like an evil magic, causing time to pass at half its usual speed.

Gray’s performance as the frolicsome Fanny sporadically reinvigorated the story, as did Ann-Giselle Spiegler’s artful direction. A giant set of stork wings--designed by John Palmer and Jonathan Klein, and operated like a puppet--lent visual wonder, as did whimsical Punch and Judy costumes that Sabrina Fiander-Benson created for the show’s all-purpose supporting players (Phinneas Kiyomura and Claudia Choi).

Yet while the villagers worked diligently to tell their story, they weren’t destined to live happily ever after.

D.H.M.

“The Fairy Tale Engineers,” Theatre of NOTE, 1517 Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 4 p.m. Ends Aug. 17. $15. (323) 856-8611. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.