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Call Waiting
((Odyssey Theatre, West Los Angeles; 99 seats; $ 17.50 top))
Judy Baxter ... Caroline Aaron
In the one-person show, "Call Waiting," Caroline Aaron vigorously plays a middle-aged, well-to-do Jewish woman confined to her bedroom with the recurring urinary tract pains of cystitis. She connects with the world through her telephone. While first-time playwright Dori Fram has a gift for humor, her play has only one real twist, making for a very long, 90-minute skit.
Director Valerie Landsburg, nonetheless, skillfully uses the gorgeous set (by Douglas D. Smith) and milks the material to show a slice of a person's life, and draws out visual humor by giving Aaron many bits to perform.
While Landsburg can't overcome the character's lack of direction, an audience can be amused for stretches.
Fram has created a reactive person in Judy Baxter, someone who takes call after call, not the least bit aggravated by a torrent of new callers beeping through on call waiting. Much as a house painter dips into the same color to keep on working, Judy plunges in for more talk, fast with her quips. "We were going to have sex last night," she tells one caller, "but we had to pay bills."
Through it all, an outline of a narrative backbone pokes through: Judy has problems relating with her sister and expressing that to her mother. She's also a jealous wife.
The most impressive aspect of the evening is Aaron's energetic approach, a sterling performance. She makes the telephone Judy's boogie board, navigating the vast tide of words like a surfer. If only the shore were more defined.
Sets, Douglas D. Smith; lighting, Doc Ballard. Opened, reviewed Nov. 1, 1994; runs through Dec. 13.
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