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Hellcab

Reviewed by Lovell Estell III

Elephant Stages

Through  Dec. 21

It’s Christmas time in sub-zero Chicago, and an intrepid unnamed cabby (Danny Parker Lopes) has just settled in for his graveyard shift. The night turns out to be anything but dull because the cabbie winds up playing round-the-clock host to a mish-mash of the desperate, loutish, dispossessed and loony.  

Director David Fofi’s sizable cast performs in multiple roles, and for the most part they mine the fertile material of Will Kern’s 1992 dramedy, tapping rich veins of humor. Example, there’s an overtly religious couple on the way to church; a snooty lawyer, and another barrister who’s a nymphomaniac; a woman without panties; a couple expecting a child in need of a quick lift to the hospital; one very gay man with car problems; two lesbians who use the backseat for bed; a shell shocked rape victim, and a Jeffrey Dahmer groupie.

Fofi’s production would be much better if Lopes’s predominately muted, one-dimensional interaction with his colorful amalgam of riders was instilled with more emotion and greater subtlety.

Elephant Stages, 6322 Santa Monica Blvd.; Hlywd.; Wed.-Thur., 8 pm.; Sat., 5 p.m.; Sun., 8 p.m. (no perf. Dec. 12); through Dec. 20. (323) 960-7784, www.Plays411.net/hellcab