While playwright Matt Pelfrey's work, including his fine one-act, Monkey, never shirks from controversial social topics, it usually comes with a heavy dose of irony, which mitigates the author's earnestness. Unfortunately, Pelfrey's latest play, under the direction of Darrell Kunitomi, loses much of this ironic tone. The result is flat and predictable.
The premise of the piece is straight out of grade B Hollywood: A bunch of suburban white men, pissed off by the onslaught of graffiti and drive-by shootings, decide to take the law into their own hands. Digging down for their primal, tribal masculinity, they form their own gang, Honkies With Attitude. While this may sound like an '80s Billy Crystal comedy, it could be promising territory in the hands of a gifted writer like Pelfrey. Neither Pelfrey nor Kunitomi are able to find the right tone of the piece, however, veering from stabs at comedy to moments of leaden seriousness. The sound design and original music by Brian Benison lift the piece somewhat, but the awkward timing of sound cues gives them a stilted quality.
The cast seems generally at a loss for direction. With the exception of a fine performance by Cris D'Annunzio as a trigger-happy villain, the otherwise talented cast never finds its way. Richard Ruyle, who was terrific in Monkey, struggles here to find the character of a father whose son was paralyzed by a random gang bullet. Other obviously talented actors like Perry Herman, who plays a talk-show host, Heather McCandless as his wife, and Mark Kinsey Stephenson as a local businessman frustrated by the twin evils of gang violence and corporate capitalism, seem uncharacteristically untethered in their performances. It is clear that the director has more work to do.
The pity of this production is that Pelfrey clearly has something important to say about the state of contemporary suburbia, with its paranoia and deteriorating race relations. A combination of incomplete writing and haphazard direction undermines the writer's message, however. Fortunately, Pelfrey has many more successful plays in him.
"Honkies with Attitudes," presented by Moving Arts at the Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring St., Downtown L.A. Fri.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 2 p.m. May 4-June 10. $18. (213) 485-1681.