By Cynthia Citron

If only her life were as interesting as her acting skills, Natalia Lazarus' one-woman play Birthday Girl might have provided an engaging theatrical experience.  But since it isn't, her dramatic posturing eventually degenerates into what appears to be massive self-indulgence.

Lazarus' play, which is currently having its Los Angeles premiere at the Promenade Playhouse in Santa Monica, commemorates her 30th birthday, which invokes a frenzy of unresolved emotions, most of them angry.  She acknowledges her resentment of her mother, who never addresses her by name. The mother is Hispanic, but berates her "Dotterrrrr" for not being married (and giving her a grandchild) with all the strident tactlessness of the archetypical Jewish mother.  And Lazarus is also furious with her father, who, although he is Jewish, behaves (and talks) like a Mafia capo and abandons her at an early age.

So, to celebrate this momentous birthday, the birthday girl takes herself to a movie.  The movie is Billy Elliott, the story of a boy who fights an insensitive father in his struggle to become a ballet dancer and, in the end, wins his father's approval and support.  Too close to home for Lazarus, she tries to release her anguish at her unresolved relationship with her own father by dancing out the story of the film.

And then she goes to a spa where a moony guru reads her "aura" and gives her a metaphysical massage, teaching her to "let go" of her anger.  This activity is so long, so tedious, and so badly paced that the anger it purports to release from the star eventually comes to settle with the audience.  You want to shout, "Enough, already! Where is this going?"  And the answer is: Nowhere.

The basic conflicts never having been explained, their resolution is both mystifying and unsatisfying.  The fault lies with the premise and the writing, although there is a hint that Natalia Lazarus, given better material, might be an okay actress.  She plays 12 different characters, but, unfortunately, she doesn't vary their appearances, so that they quickly become not only routinely identifiable, but boring.  

Certainly sharing the blame is Frederick Johntz, who is credited with developing and directing this production.  And nobody is credited with set design, which is as it should be.

Birthday Girl is an exercise that leaves the heroine celebrating alone.
  
Birthday Girl will run Fridays and Saturdays through March 19th at the Promenade Playhouse, 1404 3rd Street Promenade, in Santa Monica.