So Long Boulder City

Reviewed by Neal Weaver
Celebration Theatre at the Lex
Through August 19

This show is advertised as a one-woman show, but in this case the woman is a guy: Jimmy Fowlie (Go-Go Boy Interrupted), who modestly lists himself in the program as “Co-writer/Star.” The piece purports to be the one-woman show performed by Mia Dolan, the heroine of the movie Lala Land. (I haven’t seen the movie so some of the finer points of this piece may have been lost on me.)

Both Fowlie and co-writer/director Jordan Black have impressive credentials and strong credits in both theatre and television — moreover, the production is slick and professional, and they apparently have a strong fan-base. The show was sold out before it opened, and it has already had its run extended. The audience came prepared to laugh, and laugh they did, almost constantly. I, regretfully, was considerably less amused.

As depicted here, Mia Dolan is a stage-struck chick from Nevada, who seems totally clueless and equally as pretentious as she pursues an unlikely acting career, first at Boise University. There she takes up with a space cadet who turns out not be a student, but the bottled water delivery man. She’s mercenary, crass, slightly sluttish, and somehow manages to be cynical and naïve at the same time. The script is jam-packed with hip insider jokes about the entertainment industry, and it’s full of predictable targets: Mia can never quite find her spotlight, she’s vain about her looks, and she fails to recognize that her lover Sebastian (whom we never see) is not that into her. She plays a number of characters, but goes in for such elaborate costume changes that her performance becomes absurdly bogged down.

The show is not my cup of tea, but don’t let me stop you. It may be yours.

Celebration Theatre at the Lex, 6760 Lexington Avenue, Hollywood., Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m. https://www.celebrationtheatre.com or (323) 957-1884. Running time: One hour with no intermission.