Capsule Reviews

Porn for Puritans In just over an hour of sketches and songs, writer-performers Leigh Tomlinson and Tim Wardell attempt to show the funny side of wooing and winning the opposite sex. If only they weren’t afraid of the topic. Instead of driving their audience to ecstasy with saucy observations and sexual repartee, this duo pulls back and plays it safe with dippy old jokes about vibrators and “going to second base.” It’s all a bit quaint–not even as dirty as the comedy “party records” their grandparents might have played to liven up bridge nights back in the ’50s. Tomlinson and Wardell write material that reflects none of their own generation’s comic influences. Have they never heard a Monty Python or Richard Pryor record? Never seen AbFab or Will & Grace? Was Sex and the City not on their cable lineup? Has anyone since the Leave It to Beaver era referred to breast-fondling as “second base”? These two are to comedy writing what the Patriot Act is…to comedy writing. Their punch lines are flat and sexist (in this show, all men are horny beasts and all women are needy clingers). There’s not an original thought to be heard. Pleasant to look at these two are, but smart and funny? Not on your tintype. Still, they’re selling lots of tickets to church singles groups and other seriously comedy-impaired herds. The run of this show has been extended, and there’s talk of giving it a home for an indefinite engagement. Budding comedy writers, take note: If you can do better, start writing today. If this piffle can pull in a crowd, anything can. Through August 14 in the Black Box Theatre at The McKinney Avenue Contemporary, 3120 McKinney Ave., 214-953-1622. Reviewed this week. (Elaine Liner)

Spider’s Web In this 1950s Agatha Christie mystery, a flighty second wife, Clarissa Hailsham-Brown (Jessica Wiggers), spins crazy tales of murder and mayhem to amuse her tweedy friends while her diplomat hubby (David Brown) is away on business. Then a body turns up in the drawing room and Clarissa, her stepdaughter Pippa (Samantha Cross), and the gardener, Miss Peake (Shalitras Flowers), conspire to hide the corpse rather than get swept into a scandal. But somebody calls the coppers, and when Inspector Lord (Rich Hancock) shows up, Clarissa’s web of lies makes sticky work of her desire to tell the truth. The Rover Dramawerks company aims to produce only “lost or forgotten” plays. This weak little two-acter probably deserved to be left mouldering in the theatrical archives. At times, it wants to be a comedy. Then it turns serious and tries to play out like a classic whodunit. Inept direction and confused acting styles only make it worse. And why does Ms. Wiggers’ only costume match the stenciled wallpaper? Why does the butler (Lee Irving) wear a tuxedo instead of a butling uniform? Wait, in Act 2, he’s dressed like a golf pro. All very distracting, which Dame Agatha would not have appreciated. The butler didn’t do it, by the way. That’s another play. Through August 21 at the Black Box Theatre at the Addison Theater Center, 15650 Addison Road, 972-849-0358. Reviewed this week. (E.L.)