Genre: Comedy
Written by: Jess Lacher
Directed by: Maureen Towey
Performed by: D. Michael Berkowitz; Sara Brown; Laura Grey; Frank Smith.
Running time: 95 minutes

For ten years, a girl lives happily in a cage under the care of an insane retiree who kidnapped her believing that she was an aardvark. This is the opening of A is for Aardvark, a lighthearted to the point of trivial tale which owes any credit it deserves to the exuberant—if scenery-chewing—Laura Grey as Aardvark. Bounding around the stage, she elicits belly laughs with her uncanny ability to turn any facial expression into comedic gold. Unfortunately, the play soon gets lost in itself. With the addition of the underused Michael Berkowitz, the sorely miscast Frank Smith as Grey's boyfriend and Sara Brown as her guilt-ridden mother, it devolves into an uninspired oddball marital parody, only tangentially revisiting its undeniably unique premise. By the time an argument erupts over a cell phone bill, it's impossible to understand why Lacher took such a creative route to such a mundane ending.—Nick Mosquera

• Where: The Studio at Cherry Lane Theater
• When: Fri, Aug 13 at 5 p.m.; Sat, Aug 14 at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.; Sun, Aug 15 at 6:15 p.m., Tue, Aug 17 at 9 p.m.