A SERIES OF COMEDIC LECTURES BY JOHN LEHR

nny things about one-person shows. You can get by if you're a good writer and so-so performer. You can impress if you're a fine performer and moderately talented writer. If you can do neither, you are best advised to stay the hell away from the stage. But if you write and perform well, you've got it made. John Lehr, whom some might recognize for slogging through the Australian rainforest on ABC's peculiar reality show I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!, has the nimble physicality, supple voice, and charmingly flexible countenance to make marginally amusing stories shine in this series, which varies each week. On the night reviewed, he was highlighting spending a night in a Ventura County jail while tripping on LSD, as well as his alcoholism, drug addiction, and ultimate conversion to Judaism after falling in love with a woman of that faith. Lehr shows a penchant for pain, recounting an amusingly painful tale of getting piercings, not only of a nipple but also of his schvonz—in an adult circumcision—before agonizingly becoming one of the chosen people. Lehr has tremendous energy and presence, and while his observations about religion are not exactly profound he exhibits the ability to find discomfitingly poetic descriptions of bizarre bodily sensations. A heroin high is so all-encompassing that one could "be in a burlap sack, dumped on a highway and beaten with bats, and you've got your blankie, watching TV, and it's raining outside." "Albino Pigeon," the lecture reviewed, shows an ingratiating and honest performer whose work, created with John McCray and apparently self-directed, could be shorter in duration. It certainly does not need a weak, improv Q&A for its conclusion. A little weirdness and a lot of comedic skill can go a long way in less than 90 minutes. "A Series of Comedic Lectures by John Lehr," presented by and at the Powerhouse Theatre, 3116 2nd St., Santa Monica. Tue. 8 p.m. Sep. 9-Oct. 7. $15. (800) 413-866