San Diego Reader

Due to popular demand, Ion Theatre has extended the run of David Ives's absurdist vignettes. As Bill tells Betty in "Sure Thing" - variations on the myriad ways a chance encounter can go wrong - it's "all in the timing." Ion's polished production often had hilarious results. Brian Mackey plays Leon Trotsky with an axe in his head for 36 hours; an elastic Steven Lone's the charlatan wordsmith in "The Universal Language"; Kim Strassburger's a monkey trying to write Hamlet from scratch (but coming closer to Milton's Paradise Lost) and Trotsky's multifaceted wife; and Karson St. John shows her remarkable range in several roles. Ives's title calls attention to technique. Under Glenn Paris and Claudio Raygoza's codirection, however, the actors never make one aware of their "timing." Instead they sustain focus on Ives's truly wacko situations.
Worth a try.