Tempodyssey

A very cruel fate is in the cards for young Genny (Devin Sidell), according to Dan Dietz's anti-comedy about office temps and their fractured lives. We're force-fed 10 minutes of disconcerting twaddle—introduced by an anonymous, disembodied voice from behind a semi-sheer curtain—before bright lights flashed into the audience's collective eyes indicate we're bound for shock and horror, or just insight into the banal experiences of a temporary receptionist trying to get through her first day at Ithaco TechnoSolutions, a Seattle bomb-manufacturing complex.

"This isn't about me," Genny says. "It's about a black hole." Apparently, Genny was child-champion chicken-choker on her parents' ranch in Atlanta, so facile at breaking those scrawny chicken necks that business was booming; then suddenly Seattle, the anti-Atlanta, happens, and the witless life of a career temp formidably beckons. Despite her anonymity—all receptionists are called Jane, according to fellow temp, Dead Body Boy (Liam Springthorpe), familiarly known as Jim, as in male temp—Genny is convinced she carries her terrible killer curse with her. She's a self-styled goddess of doom. Does her legacy for killing painlessly foretell her destiny, or is she capable of a greater humanity, even when there's a handy bomb stashed close at hand in a filing cabinet?

Dietz's play, boldly and fancifully directed by Emily Weisberg, is about what lies beneath—a bit morbidly silly, but defiantly different, with eventual self-realization, personal revelations, and clever language. Deliciously cunning performances by Sidell and Springthorpe, dead or alive (it's up to interpretation); John Schumacher as Genny's Daddy; Melli Vytlacil as Last Day Girl/Fran and Mama; and Ted Jonas as Nepotism Guy/Scientist (the bomb-makers) and Security Guy are nominally self-explanatory and well-executed—to coin a phrase.


Presented by Needtheater at Art/Works Theatre, 6567 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. April 24–May 23. Fri.–Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 5 p.m. (323) 795-2215. www.needtheater.org.