Theater: The New Bozena

This Manhattan-based comedy troupe (currently performing in Los Angeles) enjoys spinning itself as “slacker vaudeville.” But let’s face it, when people are onstage wearing red balls on their noses, we’re at a clown show. The clowns here have existential dilemmas, though: each is uniquely unable to fathom his or her own strangeness. So each tries to stumble through it by mumbling nonsense, head-butting a ham or licking the pate of every bald man in the audience. Physical comedy is rarely this smart, and almost never this funny. Trained actors, the members of New Bozena succeed in making their freakish characters sympathetic. Bring an open mind and a toupee.

–By Joel Stein