‘Emmett Till’ Tells of a Failing Marriage

“Emmett Till,” Brian Burrell’sone-act at Theatre/Theater in Hollywood, has nothing to do with the real Emmett Till, the black youth whose murder became a cause celebre during the 1950s.

Burrell’s play instead details the nasty marital breakup of Devon Moore (Darrow Igus), a world-weary black sitcom writer, and his rotund white wife and co-writer, Madeline (Royce Herron). The producers characterize it as a “brutally tragic comedy” in the manner of Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

It’s certainly brutal. In front of a group of nonplussed colleagues at his house, Devon criticizes Madeline as fat and overbearing and compares her to a cow. Madeline responds by mocking Devon’s guests and suggesting that he married her to advance his career.

But it’s difficult to be much moved by Burrell’s play, partly because the Moores’ situation seems so far-fetched and partly because they fight so viciously and relentlessly that they seem inhuman. Director Sean Fenton further dulls the impact by staging the show with a laugh track, as if it were a sitcom taped before a live audience.

Also on the bill is “H.I.V. Jokes,” a brief curtain-raiser about a man who deals with his son’s having AIDS by cracking homophobic jokes.

* “Emmett Till,” Theatre/Theater, 1713 Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends Jan. 29. $10. (213) 850-6941. Running time: 1 hour, 25 minutes.