Eat the Runt

It's probably preferable to think about the central gimmick of Avery Crozier's quirky 2001 play as little as possible while viewing the play. In its West Coast premiere, under the capable direction of Tom Beyer, this audacious satire of office politics is playful and amusing. Yet it might be more rewarding for actors than for audiences. It's undoubtedly a labor of love when eight actors agree to memorize all eight roles in a play, prepared to take on any one of them—regardless of race, gender, physical size, type, or temperament—based on seemingly random casting choices made by audience members. Learning a season's worth of Shakespearean roles might be equally time-consuming. Crozier's play certainly ain't Shakespeare, but it offers the potential for unabashed fun.

The playwright cleverly uses unisex names (such as Chris, Sidney, Pinky) for the characters, and his dialogue sidesteps any use of pronouns. Gender-bending, colorblindness, and disparity between physical appearance or age and our expectations thereof can result in ironic yuks. Crozier's script stacks the deck with opportunities for dicey gags, role reversals, and flashes of unexpected humor, based on offbeat casting. Yet as in any theater piece that emphasizes spontaneity, silly and awkward moments can also be part of the experience.

At the reviewed performance, the game actors (Joshua Wolf Coleman, Krista Conti, Dawn Greenidge, Lauren Letherer, David LM McIntyre, Justin Okin, Darrett Sanders, Joel Scher) displayed no lack of preparation or compromised comic timing, which seems miraculous—and quite commendable—given the circumstances. The narrative introduces us to the insecure, eccentric, and high-strung employees of a museum, each of whom takes part in interviewing a candidate for a grant-writer position, amid outrageous lines and goofy situations. Among highlights were McIntyre's depiction of a bizarre religious epiphany—think Regan of "The Exorcist" meets Pee-Wee Herman on crack; Greenidge's sidesplitting matter-of-fact descriptions of her character's sexual secrets and scatological challenges; and Sanders' horrified reactions when his character learns what the snack food he has been feasting on derives from.

Some viewers might recall another play called "Eat the Runt": Robert Riechel Jr.'s savage 2008 satire about a playwright who kidnaps and terrorizes the critic who panned his work. Let's hope no similar revenge tactics follow reviews of Crozier's loopy opus.

Presented by and at Theatre of NOTE, 1517 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood. Aug. 10–Sept. 9. Tue.–Thu., 8 p.m. (323) 856-8611. www.theatreofnote.com.