Los Angeles

Photo/Joan Marcus

Considering that I just bashed Howard Katz as being a masturbatory show about watching someone self-destruct (and that being a far-better acted and written script), I shouldn't be saying positive things about Los Angeles. The difference comes down to intimacy: at the Flea Theater, where the Off-Off-Broadway experience is alive and well, you feel like you're a part of the action. The cast here is also young, all part of resident company The Bats, which makes the few standouts (like Ben Beckley and, at times, Katherine Waterston) all the more thrilling to find. Julian Sheppard is a vibrant writer, mining cliches for the diamonds in the rough, and Adam Rapp has used the space brilliantly, skewing the world into a landscaped hell (lit with neon lights) and seamlessly interweaving Amelia Zirin-Brown's musical cabaret into the transitions. It's not brilliant theater, but I felt connected all the same.

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