Get ‘Lost’ in the strangeness of Vegas

Melissa Schorr

Friday, Jan. 16, 1998 | 9:44 a.m.

In Julie Jensen's Vegas, no one wears natural fibers, the Fremont Street Experience is a "neon sunrise," and wearing heels without hose is barbaric.

Jensen's play, "The Lost Vegas Series," the first mainstage production of the new community theater group, the Asylum, premiered Thursday night at the Winchester Center Theatre.

Directed by the Asylum's artistic director, Maggie Winn-Jones, the play follows one woman's search for meaning in Las Vegas, following her as she scams her way into the Liberace Museum, comes looking for "pastoral guidance" at the Wee Kirk o' The Heather wedding chapel, and ends up telling her woes to a transvestite floor sweeper in the former lion's mouth of the MGM.

The play turns a sharp eye on Vegas, mocking its wedding chapels, its tourists, its heat.

"I've been thinking about death -- it comes naturally in Vegas," drawls the wise-cracking narrator, Our Girl, played with great aplomb and terrific comedic timing by Equity actress Tina Walsh, a "Jubilee!" dancer who also appeared in the original cast of "EFX."

And after the first half hour, once the audience has recovered from staring at the leggy actresses' staggeringly long gams, there is still plenty left to appreciate.

Like a cross between Maggie the Cat and Alice in Wonderland, Our Girl spars with everyone she meets and is shocked by nothing.

But while she seeks solace, all she finds is absurdity: an old love who can't remember her, a former classmate who wants to sleep with her, and, naturally, an Elvis impersonator who wants to marry her.

Presented as a series of disjointed moments in time, the play leaves one both amused and disturbed -- just like the city itself.

MELISSA SCHORR is an Accent feature writer.