Review: HOLLYWOOD FRINGE ROUND-UP PT. 2 at Various

The Hollywood Fringe Festival, LA’s largest performing arts festival, continues with a double feature from Pamela Eberhardt, showcasing her caustic wit and emotional depth.

FAMILY FRIES

Playwright Pamela Eberhardt’s searing family dramedy juggles seven disparate characters, each of whom is distinct and hysterically funny. When troubled, self-destructive Scotty (Lucas Alifano), who has been scarred in a fire, sets out to kill himself, his day goes haywire with his loose-cannon sister, Jake (Eberhardt); his father (Tyler Hayes Stilwill), who is fading due to dementia; a kidnappee (Natasha Galano); a couple, Mike and Diane (Scott Leggett and Amanda Blake Davis), looking to buy some vinyl albums via a Craigslist ad; and Scotty and Jake’s presumed-dead brother, Nick (Harvey Ryan). Director Will Thomas McFadden guides this world premiere with a deft hand; even though the family dysfunction amped is up to 11, it never turns shrill. Eberhardt’s characterizations are all complex, the writing smart and sharp, the warring 30-something siblings wacky, but also grounded. Alifano truly inhabits the nervous, frustrated, and self-destructive Scotty, completely disappearing into the character, while Davis and Stilwell continuously bring down the house as the two randos who get caught up in the drama. Pearcy lends some balance to the crazy with a quieter presence, though you can see that his still waters obscure something deeper. The space is alive despite the limitations of the black box setting, with minimal props and set dressings. It’s a brilliant, sometimes heartbreaking, look at family dynamics, and the lengths some will go to to escape trauma.

FAMILY FRIES runs Wednesday, June 25; Friday, June 27; Sunday, June 29, at the Broadwater Second Stage. Tickets are available at: hollywoodfringe.org/projects/12145?tab=tickets.

A PERFECTLY STILL CURVEBALL

A North Hollywood book club and its members — lawyer Margaret (Rodnesha Green), flighty Chase (Lucas Alifano), and uptight Alice (Emily Clark) — are thrown in different directions when Katherine (Meghan Allison), receives some life-altering news and announces her intention to quit her job, leave her husband (Andy Prescott), and move across the country. Pamela Eberhardt’s second show at this year’s Fringe (following the above superb “Family Fries”) takes on family dynamics of a different sort, this one involving a circle of friends, which anyone who has ever had friends knows can be just as knotty and thorny as those involving blood or legal relatives. Just like in “Family Fries,” Eberhardt’s characters are distinct and complex, including outsiders like Catherine’s well-meaning boss (Colin Willkie) and a confident bartender (K.J. Middlebrooks), who inserts himself into the madness. And just like “Family Fries,” A PERFECTLY STILL CURVEBALL is alternately laugh-out-loud funny and quietly moving. Director Jeff Scot Carey allows the insanity to unfurl in waves, giving his actors a good pace that never flags. While all of the performers are aces, Clark fully inhabits Alice with consummate flair, giving her shadings even beyond what is on the page, and Alifano, who was a bright light in “Family Fries” as well, loses himself so deeply in Chase, he’s unrecognizable; you would never know he was the same actor who played the disturbed Scotty in the previous show. With both of these dark dramedies, Eberhardt has proven she knows her way around the intricacies of relationships in many forms and that she is a playwright to be reckoned with.

Los Angeles Awards - Live Stats

Best Musical - Top 3

1. JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR (Hollywood Bowl)

9.2% of votes

2. HAIR (Conundrum Theatre)

5.2% of votes

3. HEATHERS (Backyard Playhouse: Treetop Production)

5.1% of votes

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