Imagine that the first draft of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues had been written by the least creative, most crass 14-year-old capable of stringing three words together. You'd almost be imagining Matt Morillo's painfully unpleasant comedy that only impresses by managing to run 90 intolerable minutes, covering five skits and a standup comedy opener, without being funny once — even unintentionally funny. Morillo's spastic direction only exacerbates this mess. He stretches 15 minutes of well-tread, repetitious material — it recalls the legendarily awful Jewtopia — that it appears to be an avant-garde exercise in seeing how long it will take for audience members to leave. The plot can be described in 10 words: Men are dogs; women are angry because men are dogs. But, in the spirit of Morillo, why use 10 words when several more will do? After the uncomfortable standup segment, the first scene is a rant by Soleil (Jessica Moreno) about why thongs and low-rise jeans are stupid. The answer is that they are too low and uncomfortable. Scene two, which launches the evening into an embarrassing realm, involves a protracted dialogue between a virgin, Sarah (Katie Locke O'Brien), and the sexually experienced Rebecca (Brooke Hasalton) about why Sarah needs to understand that men don't have feelings and that she should get over it and have sex. Things get gruesome in the next segment, a seemingly endless screwball comedy about how Rachel (Moreno) has become a raving manic-depressive now that she's on the pill. The final scene doesn't deserve further explanation, other than that it's the least funny and least original offering of the evening — and that's no easy feat. Not one performance is believable enough to earn a spot in a low-level improv troupe. Shouting, stomping, and flailing arms replace emotional depth or honesty — not that the script allows for it. Morillo's directing comes from the louder-is-funnier school, which, as usual, fails miserably. Joel Daavid's set, an artistic take on a cityscape, is the production's only redeeming quality. Unless Porky's Revenge is your favorite movie, don't see this trite trash — even if the ticket is free, and it comes with dinner and cab ride.
Presented by KADM Productions at the Hudson Mainstage Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. Thu.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 7 p.m. Oct. 3-Nov. 22. (323) 960-5774. www.angryoungwomen.net.