Wild Romp of Death and Sex at the Ex:

Zora is back from the dead, and she's ready to take on her impotent fiancee, his lover and an 18-year-old homosexual production assistant, all in the courtroom of her own kitchen. So begins Zora's Kitchen, as cast and audience embark on a fantastically clever and witty journey, replete with an arsenal of frying pans, phone sex and fornication.

Laced with erotica and humor, the play--written and directed by senior Orion Ross--is a murder mystery that mocks the debates over sexual identity, gender roles and the sexual saturation of the advertising industry.

"Murdered" by either her fiance Adam the Producer, Peter the P.A. or Maria the Model, Zora--an eccentric writer--returns from her sabbatical in the afterlife to question, condemn and convict her killer. Conducted in Zora's kitchen, the trial commences as each defendent emerges from the monstrous meat locker in the back--handcuffed to a large coat rack--to give his or her rendition of the events leading up to the "murder."

While Zora (Jennifer Davidson) holds court with a frying pan for a barrister, the wacky characters take us back through the sequences and impulses that led to the crime.

This joyride jumps back and forth through different scenes without any logical chronology. It is rapid and provocative, each scene change marked by the resounding clang of the frying pan and distorted recordings of the dialogue that have transpired on stage. The result is something very much like a current Reebok crosstrainer commercial, the kind of thing the play seems to mock. The 27 scene changes are clocked and set into motion with finesse, a credit to the lighting and set crew. However, these changes also pose a problem. Too abrupt and vague at times, they tend to jerk the audience, confusing an otherwise entertaining plot and sleek production.

The immediate gratification of the actors makes up for most of this confusion. Will Stewart, as Adam the repressed homosexual producer and fiance, starts out a little slow but soon eases into his character. Strutting about the stage, he makes great strides to assert his masculinity, making fun of "faggot beer" while defending the presence of the woman on the St. Pauli Girl bottle with the clever retort, "Yeah, but she's a whore." As the plot thickens and Peter is able to coerce him into sex, he reluctantly begins to admit that he enjoys it, and his faltering machismo is the source of much laughter.

Davidson is equally entertaining as Zora, the one who wears the pants in the relationship. Although her exchanges with Adam tend to be less convincing than the rest of her performance, she plays her part with excellent timing and gusto, and her facial expressions are even funnier than some of her lines. She also creates a rapport with the audience, full of wide eyes and exasperated glances. Her character is ballsy and funny, the glue that holds the story together.

Maria the Model (Hannah Feldman), unfortunately dilutes some of this cohesiveness. Kind of like a Ford engine in a Ferrari, she never fully realizes Maria's character. Her stage presence is awkward, self-conscious at times, and she can't quite seem to match the grace and speed with which the other actors shift gears.

Her "15 minutes" come when she tries out for Adam's commercial, putting Madonna to shame while she sucks down a French soda and oozes, "Le Rican, me donne le bon temps" (the American gives me a good time). One of the funniest moments in the play, her chemistry with Adam is electric and of course, leads to the "casting couch."

In the role of Peter, the preppy and anal homosexual P.A., David R. Gammons upstaged the other actors with his masterful performance. His delivery was finely tuned, going back and forth from his outwardly uptight demeanor to a lusty raw one, in which he "has" phone sex and masturbates. He remains in perfect tandem with the other players, darting about the stage, typing frantically on his lap-top computer and molesting Adam. His interaction with the audience, the other characters and with his props--coffee mug, knife, parts of Zora's body--are fully developed and fully enthralling.

The story is enhanced, aside from the meat locker and frying pan, by other props, such as an actual screen and video camera (used both for Adam's commercials and Adam's "love affair" with Peter.) The characters appear live on both the screen and the stage, further developing the many dimensions of the play. The play is crafty in all its manifestations--diologue, set design and progression--testimony to Ross' artistic talents and sense of overall composition.

Zora's Kitchen, although at times unnecessarily profane, is brazen and bold. It is a clever mockery of and quasi-investigation into age-old and contemporary questions--what does it mean to be an artist? a lover? or just a repressed asshole in the ad industry in New York in the '90s--all done with a healthy heaping of satire. You may go away horny, but you won't go away hungry.