El Niño 

Reviewed by Gray Palmer 
Rogue Machine at The Met Theatre 
Extended through April 22 

RECOMMENDED 

Justin Tanner, whose newest play, El Niño, just cheerfully opened at The Met in a smart production by Rogue Machine, is a master of Trash Theater. That’s not an insult. In the same sense that John Waters proudly calls himself “Filth Elder,” we can call Tanner — he’s younger than Waters — a master comedian of the thrown-away.

Look at some of the Tanner titles (journalists like to recite them): Pot Mom, Teen Girl, Coyote Woman, for example, and the unkillable Zombie Attack which ran for ten years at the Cast Theater. But a perusal of Tanner reviews from the major press will turn up familiar strains of a backhand evaluation of kitsch. Here, from Variety: “… unpolished and awfully slight…”

Unpolished? No. Tanner’s dialogue is the result of a deliberate, bracing shittiness — and that’s a substance very difficult to buff. El Niño is crammed with admirable invective: His characters say things that could be permanently wounding — except that, in crimes of intimacy, restitution by the offender or forgiveness by the injured party is always possible. And slight? Not here: The comic storminess of El Niño summons the shame and horror of foot ailments, mutilation anxiety, aging, pet-death, Über, moronic xenophobia, ill-considered truth-telling, and other challenges to compassion.

The story takes place in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Highland Park in a “faux-Craftsman” house (with good set design by John Iacovelli and lighting by Brian Gale), where daughter Colleen (the perfect Maile Flanagan) has camped on her retired parents’ couch. Miserable Colleen, now homeless, ill, and unemployed, is the author of many science-fiction paperbacks (“light on science” and out-of-print).

Her parents (Danielle Kennedy and Nick Ullett, unbeatable as a bickering pair) have had enough of Colleen after a week, and as the story begins, they ask her to leave. But that doesn’t seem possible.

We soon meet Colleen’s sister, Andrea (Melissa Denton), clearly the vicious mascot of the family, and the two men who round out the ensemble: Andrea’s appalling new boyfriend, Todd (excellent Jonathan Palmer), a veterinary euthanasia-specialist, and neighbor Kevin (priceless Joe Keyes) who is caring for his very sick cat, Larry.

During the course of the story, neighbor Kevin is seen rooting through the family’s garbage. What he finds there, and what he sees in what he finds, makes the satisfying denouement possible.

Tanner’s touch has long been recognized by performers with comic expertise. Some members of the El Niño ensemble have worked with him for over thirty years. It shows. The direction by Lisa James is confident and bold.

The Met Theatre, 1089 N. Oxford Ave., Hollywood; Sat. 8:30, Sun. 3, Mon. 8:30; no perf. on Mon. 3/19, Extended through April 22; (855) 585-5155, roguemachinetheater.net . Running-time: One hour and twenty minutes without intermission.