The Midnight Menagerie 

Reviewed by Paul Birchall 
Bardic Bastards (Hollywood Fringe Festival)
Through June 21 

In playwright Brandon Nicholas Pfeltz’s extremely unpleasant (and one suspects the unpleasantness is intentional) comedy, Guiseppe (Manny Rodriguez), a mafia don turned screenwriter, is displeased with the final results of the epic he wrote, so he invites the stars and producers to a late-night supper at his isolated chateau. This is not a congratulatory supper, however, since he soon announces that he has spiked all the guests’ drinks with poison — except for one, who has swallowed an antidote pill instead. Before long, the guests are killing each other so as to deduce who has swallowed the antidote — and the stage is awash with blood, vomit, and brain goo.  

It would be a stretch to call Pfeltz’s shallow, sadistic piece a work of Grand Guignol — it hasn’t the emotional depth for that — but there’s something energizing about the sheer wickedness and cruelty of the situations he puts his characters in. However, these setups frequently devolve with such extreme sadism and camp that any emotion we might feel is undercut. The writer’s suggestion that the work is an allegory for a new Hollywood sweeping aside the corruptions of an old Hollywood also ring shallow, given the flat dialogue and clumsy, broad stroke stereotypes. 

As a vampy, aging starlet, Kelly Washington offers an aptly brittle turn before her character throws up all over the stage. Maiya Reaves, who plays a shark-like agent who comes to a sadistic end, is suitably ferocious, while Nika Papastefanou’s matinee idol, reminiscent of Orson Welles, is droll. However, the script’s scattershot logic and grotesque storyline are ultimately off-putting. 

Dorie Theatre at the Complex, 6468 Santa Monica Blvd, Hollywood; through June 21; https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/5098?tab=tickets. Running time: 60 minutes.