Matchstalk Man

New City Theater

Through Oct 26.

Every day each one of us tells a lie. We tell lies to other people to make them feel good about themselves. We tell lies to protect ourselves. We tell lies to feel more in control of our own destiny. The lies told on New City's dingy warehouse set are lies born of paranoia, fueled by drugs, and destroyed by flame.

Matchstalk Man is Billy Woods' near-farcical play set in London's South End, dealing with four small-time criminal punks who manage, out of sheer luck, to score big on a crack deal. They also manage, out of sheer bad luck, to lose the money. Hiding from the police in a warehouse, the group spends the entire time accusing each other of stealing the money. Everyone thinks the other is lying. The problem is, they all are.

While the deceptions we might expect from a typical heist story are there, the real untruths told in this play concern the fragile dreams of a better life. Head punk Jack, played with terrific hooligan flair by Malte Frid-Nielsen, lies to cover the secret reason for his arsonist tendencies and the fact that his acid-washed memory of childhood is failing. Meanwhile, his girlfriend Georgie, fleshed out nicely by the perpetually cowering Sherrine Azab, may or may not be lying about a pregnancy to save their abusive relationship. The couple's dreams of simple domesticity are hindered further by the conniving of cohorts Terry (Darren L. Johnson) and Pansy (Jenny Greenfield).

Director John Kazanjian does well in amping up the scenes with enough violence and blood (which actually splattered the audience during the performance I saw) to create a heightened level of desperation that seems both natural and ridiculous. At the same time, he manages to temper the cast into delivering confessional moments that are honest and serenely quiet.

Well, as honest as liars can be. GREGORY ZURA

Scapin

Intiman Theatre

Through Oct 19.

To describe their musical adaptation of Molière's classic, the Intiman PR folks conjured up such adjectives as "joyous," "magical," and the buck-fifty jobber, "ebullient."

Exactly.

It's always good to see a show with style--even one so vapid as this. Sure, Molière was famous for penning overblown characters, but SOMEBODY at Intiman seriously needs to be introduced to the sage old stage saw that the essence of comedy lies in playing it straight. There's no "straight man" (for lack of a better term) in this production at all--every character is a big, goofy, over-the-top clown who demands all of your attention, all of the time. It gets a little exhausting.

Scapin's basic plot is stocker-than-stock, loaded with star-crossed young lovers, miserly fathers, tricky servants, and tons of pie-in-the-face-type physical humor. But between all the ad-libs, the cute anachronisms (Ron Sims jokes!), and the mercilessly repeated physical and word gags (if you miss something, don't worry--they're gonna do the exact same gag 20 more times), the story line is almost impossible to follow. Did I mention the gags that kept repeating? They weren't bad gags (the first 10 times), but come on! And frankly, I was not too impressed with Rusty Magee's score--especially the number that had the cast singing nothing but "Scapin! Scapin!" over and over for what seemed like weeks.

But I was impressed with some things--like the production's aforementioned style. Aesthetically speaking, Scapin is scrumptious. A charming and clever mélange of shadow puppetry, a vivid set and flamboyant costume work, the classic masks, and even the single tiny moth that trails a moldy old man around the stage--all heartwarming old stage magic that works wonderfully. The story is impossible to buy into, and you won't give a flying fig about the characters--but man, does Scapin ever succeed at being ebullient. ADRIAN RYAN

Fuddy Meers

ACT Theatre

Through Oct 13.

The plot of David Lindsay-Abaire's Fuddy Meers (a character's mangled pronunciation of a carnival's "funny mirrors") is about a long day in the life of Claire (played by Cindy Basco), a cheerful amnesiac who forgets everything she knows every single morning. Below glittering lights that suggest an amusement park, an array of kooks--a lisping convict, a lunatic who speaks with a sock puppet, a doctor who may or may not be Claire's husband, a surly teenager, and an enraged lady cop--pull and push at Claire in order to subvert her memory to their own agendas.

Though some solid and inventive performances from a talented cast hold Fuddy Meers together for a time, the inherent flaws of this lightweight play and the overly manic direction of Kurt Beattie send the whole thing flying off the roller-coaster rails well before the second act. Nothing sucks the air out of a comedy more than self-conscious zaniness, and there is not a single character in this clattering claptrap of a play whose behavior is not oh-so-exhaustingly wacky. Watching a stage full of them stomping around and hollering over one another to be heard was utterly enervating. Though this play purports to be about terrifically deep ideas like identity and consciousness, its slick surface and empty head guarantee it will slide from memory like cotton candy down the drain. TAMARA PARIS