A Very Lesbian Nutcracker & Hung by the Chimney
Pulp Vixens at Northwest Asian American Theatre,
340-1049. Through Dec 24.

The Christmas season strikes fear into whatever part of my heart belongs to theater reviewing, because so many companies mount sentimental, heartwarming "favorites" that I find myself having Roger Corman slasher-movie fantasies. However, having laughed to the point of almost wetting my knickers at Pulp Vixens' last show, Derailed Desires, I was looking forward to seeing their holiday program. When I realized that the two one-acts in their program, A Very Lesbian Nutcracker and Hung by the Chimney, had been written by shadow puppet creator Scot "Sgt. Rigsby" Augustson, and that Pulp Vixen regulars Jennifer Jasper and Shawn Yates were to be joined by the brilliant, multi-faceted Keri Healey, I was thrilled.

Augustson (who is hereby declared an Honorary Lesbo) lampoons a veritable museum of lesbian cliché in his two scripts. Nutcracker begins in St. Lezlie's Ballet and Catholic Boarding School for Girls, where Gizelda (Yates, in a red-and-green plaid skirt and white blouse) is troubled by the strange feelings she has about the scent emanating from her school chums' "rich, pungent tutus." Sister Madame Esmerelda (Healey, resplendent in a shiny, SM-y black nun's habit, and with a heavy pan-European accent) pursues Gizelda, but the girl prefers amor with a dyke rock star (Jasper). Almost immediately Gizelda and her rock star forgo their wealth and fame in order to settle down on "wimmin's land." When they get tired of that, they become lesbian porn stars.

In Chimney, a beautiful Dame (Shawn Yates) hires the terse, tough-talking "Molly O'Malley, Private Dick" (Jasper) to find a lost monkey. Suffice to say, the other stock noir characters (wise-cracking cabbie, brainy office lady, dizzy stool pigeon) are as perfectly suited to the lesbian femme/butch interpretation as Dame and Dick.

Jesus, are these guys funny. Enough said. REBECCA BROWN

Orgasmo Adulto Escapes from the Zoo
A Theatre Under the Influence at the Union Garage,
720-1942. Through Dec 15.

Orgasmo Adulto Escapes from the Zoo is a series of thematically related monologues: A woman has been locked in her New York apartment by her husband; a woman finds herself so exhausted by juggling child care and a service job that she can't remember where she put her keys; a prostitute (she prefers the word "whore") is interrogated in an insane asylum. In the late 1970s, when these monologues were written, it was enough to announce that horrible things were happening in the world. The world, unfortunately, has gotten sneakier.

For example: Actress Nicole DuFresne, who performs much of her monologue wearing only a bra and panties, seems to have waxed the entirety of her trim, aerobicized body (it's hard not to notice, since at one point the staging aims her crotch at the audience). There's nothing wrong with shaving. We live in a post-feminist riot-grrrl age; while not all feminists like lipstick or crotchless panties, they'll fight to the death for your right to wear them. Unfortunately, the vast machinery of corporate capitalism has seized upon this sex-positive angle and proceeded to sell dubious junk using images of slender women wearing less clothing than ever. To call DuFresne's bikini wax reactionary is ridiculous; but to deny that it plays into a consumer-oriented and male-dominated system of sexual iconography is equally foolish.

Orgasmo Adulto doesn't address these current contradictions, though the production can't avoid them. The text concerns much more obvious forms of oppression and submission, familiar and easily condemned stuff. Your appreciation of it will depend on your tolerance for being told things you already know. Modern life is complicated; those who want to pick it apart will have to get trickier. Despite the sincere and capable intentions of its cast and director, Orgasmo Adulto is not up to the task. BRET FETZER

Therese Raquin
The Shunpike Arts Collective at the Odd Duck Studio,
484-8451. Through Dec 15.

The Shunpike Arts Collective is a lively, versatile group that makes music, visual art, a literary magazine, film, and theater. Their current play started with a really cool idea: adapting a classic of 19th-century French Naturalist literature for the stage as Movement Theater. Therese Raquin, an early novel in Emil Zola's 20-volume saga about the Rougon-Macquart family, is a busy tale of family, envy, sexual obsession, murder, and guilt. The script adapted from this doorstop of a book is surprisingly crisp--even funny in places. In order to please her aunt Mme. Raquin (Leigh Simpson), Therese Raquin (Michelle Lewis) has married her semi-invalid cousin, Camille (Jeremy Topping). The three of them live in a small apartment, and are frequently visited by Michaud (Michael Sendrow) and Grivet (Joseph Ragland), two clueless buffoons who provide the comic moments. When the painter Laurent (Frank Chiachiere), who has been painting a portrait of Camille, falls in love with Therese, tragedy ensues.

Where Zola (and his naturalist cohorts Balzac and Flaubert) had depicted the inner lives of characters through obsessive attention to the details of their daily lives--what they wore and ate, exactly how much money they had--the Shunpike Arts Collective depict inner lives via stylized movements and visuals. There are some good visual moments, like when Camille, Laurent, and Therese, as members of a love triangle, pull and push against each other with the symbols of their impending deaths. There are also some fine uses of split staging, like where the lovers' quarrel downstage is paired with an innocuous game of cards played upstage by the oblivious others. Unfortunately, the acting in this show is weak. Maybe some of the performers should have stuck to their music and magazine production roles rather than trying to expand into acting. REBECCA BROWN