The Cutting Edge

While a few of the theaters in the NoHo Arts District have been thriving with the boom economy, more than a few have struggled, producing when they can and getting by on whatever paltry resources they can scrabble together.

The Creative Center is among the latter and its new One-Act Festival 2000 is a rare full production for a group that spends more time holding workshops than producing.

The pairing of Timothy Mason’s “Sorry” with company member Jackie Lewis’ “Birds of a Feather Stuck Together” doesn’t exactly fit the standard definition of a “festival,” which is typically composed of more than two and fewer than 20 one-acts. But that is not the real problem here.

The playwrights for both pieces seem more concerned with devices and playing it cute than with substance. Mason’s big city is New York, and his singles are Pat (Brooke Shelton) and Wayne (Michael Vaccaro), whom Pat has just accidentally shot, mistaking him for an intruder.

Faster than you can say “plot twist,” Pat discovers that Wayne is the guy in the neighboring building who has been looking at her through an optical device.

Pat’s first response, “I’m sorry,” becomes Wayne’s, but Mason has a long, long way to go before he convinces us that these two can find true love together. “Sorry” goes only part of the way, and although Shelton and Vaccaro (under Courtney Gains’ direction) burn up several gallons of energy putting life into this couple, the comedy is finally more of a stunt than a work with anything real to say about the varying perceptions and behavior of men and women.

Lewis is also concerned with the battle between the genders, but in “Birds of a Feather Stuck Together,” the real battle is inside.

Her fairly clever idea is not only to offer us two shy singles, Shana O’Neil’s Winnie and Anthony Francis Green’s Henry, but also to show us their more rambunctious, sex-charged ids that talk with them, coach them and prod them--Sara Davis’ Kitty (for Winnie) and Russell Johnson’s Bronco (for Henry).

It’s a risky device since it’s ever so gradually revealed, making the first half of the play come off as an unfunny variation of “The Odd Couple,” with Winnie and Kitty jousting and clashing with each other in a Santa Monica apartment.

Under Judi O’Neil’s direction, the onstage antics are all a bit funny in retrospect, when thinking about how a writer like Winnie needs a muse like Kitty who paints rather than writes, and the final sweaty make-out session between Winnie and Henry is a nice capper. But watching Kitty paint as if she’s making love to the canvas and hearing her advice is the play’s albatross, and the burden never goes away.

BE THERE

One-Act Festival 2000, the Creative Center, 11223 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends July 29. $12. (818) 763-0323. Running time: 1 hour, 25 minutes.