6 WEIRD, WONDERFUL AND TERRIBLE SHOWS WE'VE SEEN AT THE HOLLYWOOD FRINGE FEST

CLEANER THAN BLOOD at the Lounge Theatre

Jen Silverman’s gripping, high-tension one-act play starts out with small-time criminal types Paul (Austin Iredale) and Jeffrey (Kjai Block) hiding out in the wine cellar of an unoccupied east coast summer house as they plan their next moves. When a young woman by the name of Marr (Maggie Blake) surprises them by walking in and announcing that the place belongs to her uncle, who is expected to return the next day from an extended absence, the men take her hostage. Then, over the course of the evening, we slowly learn that none of these three desperadoes is at all who they say they are.

Even as these revelations reorient our understanding of the identities and relations at play among the trio, director Alexander Thomas Scott nicely allows the critical points to emerge not as jolting events that suddenly upend the whole world of the play as we’ve known it, but almost as normal turns of conversation. And as the consequences of staying where they are keep getting raised for their characters, all three actors, too, let events take their course without excessively manifesting the fear and emotional turmoil that implicitly mount with every line and passing moment.

For our money, the play’s climactic dénouement is not quite as compelling as the preceding hour of uncertainty that builds up to it, but that barely even matters. As a study of three people inadvertently united to reconcile a past they’d rather not have to share, Cleaner Than Blood is a suspenseful drama that plays around with your expectations and never stops moving forward.

Cleaner Than Blood plays tomorrow night at 10 and then six more times through June 29. Tickets $13.75 online.

Full article at http://laist.com/2013/06/13/the_2013_hollywood_fringe_festival.php