Playwright Caroline Treadwell takes a lighthearted look at the folkways and quirky lives of 10 young Angelenos. These city dwellers often find themselves at cross-purposes; their conversations have a way of breaking up, even when not conducted by cell phone; and their lives intersect in patterns of daunting complexity.
Marin (Porter Kelly) is a pugnacious, bossy young woman who spends most of her life talking on her cell and likes to micromanage the love lives of her friends. She encourages Anna (Ruth Livier) to go on a blind date with likable nerd Julian (Kevin Hoffer) to make Anna's erring boyfriend, Tom (Seamus Dever), jealous -- but golfer Tom is having an affair with Consuela (Sandra Cevallos), whose brother Hernan (Alejandro Cardenas) works as Tom's caddy. After some Internet flirtation, Beth (Ashleigh Sumner) meets up with fellow lesbian Celine (Kristen Ariza), whom Beth finds too good to be true. Marin, meanwhile, is too busy keeping tabs on Anna and Beth to realize that her own boyfriend, Charlie (Daniel Billet), is in love with her and preparing to propose. When she rejects him, he overindulges in coke, goes slightly bananas, and hooks up with Reese (Adam Donshik), a Starbucks barista who's also a connoisseur of exotic drugs -- and who just happens to have been dumped by Celine.
Treadwell has a shrewd knack for clever dialogue and finding rueful comedy in recognizable characters and situations. Director Joe Camareno is equally deft at juggling the multiple plot lines and making the tangled relations clear, comprehensible, and funny. He has assembled a winning crew of actors, who play their roles with wacky conviction. Billet delivers a gloriously over-the-top performance as emotional, drug-addled Charlie, while Sumner nimbly captures Beth's obsessive fear of getting dumped. Donshik provides a flamboyant portrait of the eccentric Reese, and Kelly makes Marin engaging even when she's being obnoxious.
This is a delicious snapshot of dating and mating in old El Lay. By the end, Treadwell brings about as many clinches, clashes, and reconciliations as a Shakespearean comedy and marshals them all to a richly satisfying close.
Presented by American Studio Theatre and PlayGrounds Ink! at the Lillian Theatre,
1076 N. Lillian Way, Hollywood.
Fri.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 7 p.m. (Sun. 2 p.m. only Nov. 11-18.) Oct. 13-Nov. 18.
(323) 960-7774. www.plays411.com/taco.