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Theater review: ‘Eat the Runt’ at Theatre of NOTE

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If “Saturday Night Live” made an industrial video on hiring practices, it might look a lot like “Eat the Runt,” Avery Crozier’s breezy satire on how to land a job and a joke, now at Theatre of NOTE.

The premise is simple: a candidate named Merritt shows up for a job interview at a tony art museum. But here’s the twist: each night, the play is cast by the audience — the ensemble members don’t know which role they’ll assay until the curtain has already gone up. Last Tuesday, a repeat viewer enthusiastically chose Joel Scher to play the unhinged job applicant and no one had any cause for complaint. The rest of the cast veered toward easy camp, but there were restrained standouts: Lauren Letherer created a hilariously deadpan curator who hates Pollack, and David LM McIntyre’s perpetually alarmed trustee stumbles into one faux pas after another.

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Unlike “Runt’s’ twisted characters, Crozier doesn’t discriminate: Riffs on hemorrhoids and the ontology of fund-raising happily coexist. There are more hits than misses in Tom Beyer’s production, but intermission slows things down — this romp is an extended sketch and benefits from speed.

-- Charlotte Stoudt

“Eat the Runt” Theatre of NOTE, 1517 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood. 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays. Ends Sept. 9. $18-$22. Contact: (323) 856-8611 or www.theatreofnote.com. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

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