Tilt

Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
Sacred Fools Theatre Second Stage
Extended through July 16

RECOMMENDED

Tilt is the latest dark comedy from Ben Moroski, the writer/performer whose play The Wake was voted best solo show at the Fringe in 2014 (deservedly, in this critic’s opinion). It later garnered Moroski a Stage Raw award for best solo performance as well.

In Tilt, directed by Nick Massouh, Moroski pairs with Michael Shaw Fisher to deliver a tornado-like two-hander about a buddy road trip gone desperately awry. Boone (Moroski) and Chester (Fisher), who had met at a mental health facility after each had had a meltdown, set out to drive from L.A. to Sacramento — but on a whim of Chester’s, they stop in Palmdale where they hatch a blackmailing scheme that nets them a pile of cash. Now it’s two and a half weeks later and they’re on the lam and laying low in a deserted cabin. Things come apart when a couple looking for somewhere to screw crawls through the cabin window, and Chester (after breaking the intruders’ legs) decides, to Boone’s horror, that they must be killed. Moroski and Fisher are peerless talents, and the drama that builds around the difference of opinion between their two unhinged characters generates a conflagration of great comic, if unsettling, proportion.

Sacred Fools Theatre Second Stage, 6320 Santa Monica Blvd. Hollywood; www.hollywoodfringe.org/3396; Extended through July 16. Running time: one hour.