Three little-known plays from theater of the absurd

Here's another absurd labor of love by the Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium, a theater company devoted to lesser-known works of the theater of the absurd, a dated subspecies of drama. Tina Brock, the artistic director and driving force behind this niche group has rounded up the usual suspects - Beckett, Durang and Ionesco - only to prove that sometimes little-known works are little known for good reason, despite the casts' solid performances.

Three short plays make up the 75-minute program. The best is the serious one,

Ohio Impromptu

, Samuel Beckett's stark meditation on loss and grief. Two white-haired men, dressed in black, sit at a white table on which rests a black hat and a book, from which one man reads the story of the other's lost love. It was inspired to cast twins (Michael and Tomas Dura) in the roles, more than satisfying Beckett's direction "as alike in appearance as possible."

But, like most late Beckett,

Ohio Impromptu

depends on sharp visual and aural contrasts, which are compromised here by the uncontrolled lighting and the cancan red velvet curtain of L'Etage Cabaret.

Both

Wanda's Visit

by Christopher Durang and

Frenzy for Two, or More

by Eugene Ionesco are intended to be funny, although comedy seems to have left these plays behind years ago. Ionesco's sensibility is always WWII European, and the absurdity of hiding indoors from a violent war while bickering over nonsense is more irritating than hilarious. Corinna Burns and Brian Adoff do a good job with the difficult material, but how many lines like "When I was small I was a child" or "If I'd learned a technique, I'd be a technician" can a person bear?

Durang's overlong farce is about another bickering married couple, bored and bogged down by routine. When Wanda (the excellent Gerre Garrett), the husband's high school sweetheart, arrives as a pushy houseguest, recounting endless tales of sex and violence, the uptight wife reaches the end of her rope while the easily flattered husband falls for Wanda's every trick. Burns plays - well - another annoying, illogical wife, as does Bob Schmidt her dolt of a husband.

Although as theater history the company's mission is admirable, the trio of plays doesn't make for an entirely satisfying evening of theater, leaving us staring at the truth in the Ionesco husband's line: "If I'd never seen you, we'd never have met."

Presented by Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium at L'Etage Cabaret, Sixth and Bainbridge Streets. Through next Thursday. Tickets $15. Information: 215-285-0472 or

» READ MORE: www.idiopathicridiculopathyconsortium.com

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