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Dating: Adults Embracing Failure

Reviewed by Neal Weaver

Broken Hearts Productions at The Lounge Theatre

Through Oct. 29

RECOMMENDED:

This topical comedy show, written and performed by Josh Lanzet and Lindy Voeltner, and directed by Andy Eninger, takes a rueful look at the pitfalls of the dating game, and it seems like a date-night show if there ever was one.

The piece gets underway with a sharply etched encounter in which Lanzet shoots himself in the foot by talking too much and using every tired pickup line in the book. She listens, cringing inwardly, ‘till she can’t take it anymore, then grabs him by the hand and says, in essence, “Come on. But you’re just lucky that I hate myself.” She then drags him away to a date or perhaps a tryst.

The two performers deftly play out a variety of situations, some of them in chapters scattered through the performance. In one they are cross-word puzzle addicts who meet on a Chicago park bench and discover, to their delight, that they are both from Queens, NY. As the Kung Pow Chicken and Cashew Chicken lovers, they’re ordering in a Chinese restaurant, but when the waiter asks, “Are you two together?” he, commitment shy, has a meltdown, babbling “Together how? What do you mean by together?” And in a sketch in which he’s a musician who plays for contributions on a subway platform and she’s an intrigued subway rider, they even manage to work in a couple of songs.

Both actors provide considerable charm, alternately self-effacing and sassy, and their characters are sharply sketched. A couple of brief sketches are so fragmentary that we could do without them, but most of the time they’re right on target.

Broken Heart Productions at The Hudson Guild Theatre, 6201 Santa Monica Blvd., Hlywd.; Thurs., 8 p.m.; through Oct. 29.  www.plays411.com/dating.