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The Load-In
Reviewed by Vanessa Cate
Mahoobla Productions at Three Clubs
Through June 27
The reality of putting on a new play in a full and functional bar is that there is going to be a very live, loud and human aspect to any performance. Writer/director David Svengalis’s The Load-In smartly uses the circumstance to its advantage. The time and place is “here” and “now”, the characters portrayed are bar workers and the musicians loading in the equipment for their big show.
The premise is interesting, however the execution lacks a realism that would help it succeed. Svengalis seems to have a lot of opinions he wants to relate, both about bars and musicians, but the comedy in the script is directed with a misplaced and unattainable naturalism that this cast is incapable of achieving.
What might have been the dramatic climax – that the gaggle of deus ex machinas hoped to achieve — it got diffused by energy-sapping technical difficulties. With more maturity in every aspect of this production, this could be a delightful farce. In the meantime, the load-out following the show had higher energy than the show itself.
Mahoobla Productions at Three Clubs, 1123 St., Hollywood, CA 90038; https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/2490?tab=details
California Kiki
Reviewed by Vanessa Cate
MB Stage Productions at Three Clubs
Through June 23
RECOMMENDED:
Brett McMahon’s California Kiki may come off at first as an exercise in self-indulgence from a program that sports not one but four headshots as well as one long note from McMahon likening his creation to the Moulin Rouge of California (which I read during the 22 minutes between the show’s advertised start time and its actual commencing).
The idea of self-indulgence still clung as I watched the very pretty McMahon deliver his renditions of “Hello Dolly” and “The Circle of Life”. Peppered between seemingly random songs were shreds of personal history, but not amounting to much substance.
However, around the sixth song, I realized that I had been completely won over. Though the story wasn’t much of a story at all, McMahon’s charisma won out. His one-liners, flirtatious delivery and vulnerable confessions reminded me of Dean Martin. And, luckily, his singing was every bit as good as he toted, somewhere between Zach Condon and Michael Buble.
If you ask Urban Dictionary, it will tell you that a “kiki” is “a party including good music and good friends, held for the express purpose of calming nerves, reducing anxiety and stress and generally fighting ennui.” In this, Brett McMahon succeeds, and despite a set that at times got derailed and could use some polishing, resulted in a very good time and an enraptured audience.
MB Stage Productions at Three Clubs, 1123 St., Hollywood, CA 90038; https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/2352
