Theatre Carnivale at Olio; ‘Horowitz, Mrs. Washington’ at Main Stage; ‘Under the Skin’ at West Coast Ensemble; ‘Susan and God’ at Rapport

Theatre Carnivale has blown back into town and has set up its act at the Olio Theatre.

Self-dubbed “splattervillians” (as opposed to vaudevillians), Carnivale performers (main Carnivale members Johanna Went, Stephen Holman, Toni Oswald, Aaron Osborne and the Stank are mostly L.A.-based) like messy theater that leaves stains on our collective unconscious. Calling them updated Grand Guignol makes them sound too civilized.

Each Thursday night performance in March has a different theme. Last week was Fish Night.

Mystifying, infuriating, satiric, collegiate, brash and gross, the poorly paced revue showed the guest artists almost always upstaging the splattervillians. George diCaprio’s used overhead projections, taped music and a water bowl filled with moss, pollywogs and colored dyes to create a world of aquatic beauty and terror. The Stank’s and Osborne’s skits on (very human) fish life would barely qualify for “Saturday Night Live.”

John Fleck’s guest appearance, on the other hand, might land a place in a future book on the local performance art scene. He presented a man, amphibiously emerging from the sea and tortured by guilt over nature’s death.

Fleck’s sinewy presence and piercing voice grips an audience like a noose, making them believe . When his character, in symbolic gesture, urinated (or a reasonable facsimile of it) into a toilet containing a goldfish, scooped the fish into a glass and started feeding it fish food, an infuriated Carnivale member stormed on stage and snatched the glass out of Fleck’s hand. Fleck, who later claimed it was not part of the performance, recovered with a dazzling improvisation that sent the young, supposedly shock-proof crowd into a tizzy.

Went was the only other artist here in Fleck’s league. But her ghoulish display of a screaming family in ruin, complete with mutilated blood sausages, was mild compared to her Club Lingerie performance a few years ago.

Jane Cantillon amused with some bent cabaret standards, and Oswald’s “Pandora’s Box” was a brief, compact woman’s view of dating. The finale flunked, though, as Holman took a funny idea--beleaguered housewife sells porn magazines on the side--nowhere.

Performances are at 3709 Sunset Blvd., on Thursdays, 10 p.m. (Fish Night started at 10:40 and let out at 1 a.m.) through March 31. Tickets: $8; (213) 661-4815.

‘Horowitz and Mrs. Washington’

From Theatre Carnivale to Henry Denker’s warm comedy, “Horowitz and Mrs. Washington.” (Who said Equity waiver didn’t offer the customer a choice?) Horowitz (Aaron Heyman) has suffered a stroke after being mugged by black kids on a New York street. Now he has to relearn the use of his left hand, but needs a qualified therapist. Enter Mrs. Washington, proud, skilled, and black (Jean Hubbard Boone).

Black and Jew--in case we didn’t get the message--must learn to live with each other. For the most part, though, Denker manages to avoid inserting his comedy into the pincers of either TV pap or pamphleteering. Horowitz is even prouder than Washington--a strength that’s also a fault--and has the means to survive.

The problem Denker hasn’t solved is that the old man is so funny (Heyman inhabits him fully), he could have a healthy run in the Catskills, leaving the nurse worse off than the most desperate straight man. Boone hasn’t found a way of making her interesting.

Co-directors Denker and Trudy Brooks (uncredited in the program at Brooks’ request) keep the interaction flowing, stumbling only with a tricky scene transition from Horowitz’s apartment to Central Park. Lonnie Burr and Kathryn White are cartoonish as a son and daughter you love to hate.

Performances are at the Main Stage Theatre, 12135 Riverside Drive, North Hollywood, on Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 3 and 7:30 p.m., until April 10. Tickets: $9-$15; (818) 508-0786.

‘Under the Skin’

“Under the Skin,” as in creepy. Betty Lambert’s psychodrama, at the West Coast Ensemble, is that infuriating kind of play that has you reacting to characters just as the writer intends, yet rejecting the underlying conceit.

Maggie (Cheryl Lesley Royce) is understandably distraught at the disappearance of her 12-year-old daughter, and friend Renee (Marykate Harris) is understandably concerned.

But Renee’s husband, John (Robert King), comes in out of left field with the most extreme domestic patriarchal act imaginable. In fact, John’s character (calling Renee a whore and far more unprintable names) and her reaction (to give in) aren’t imaginable--they’re unbelievable. When lowly housewife Renee insults college professor Maggie, still hurting and hoping for her daughter’s return, the last vestige of remotely human behavior is gone from Lambert’s play.

Gone, that is, long before the play is over. John becomes ogre-like, and Lambert stretches out the revelations to the detriment of any dramatic effect. The uncredited sound cues do much more for the creepy feeling than the actors, who, with director Anthony Giaimo, struggle with the difficult text.

Performances are at 6240 Hollywood Blvd. on Thursdays through Sundays, 8 p.m. Ends March 27. Tickets: $12; (213) 464-5022.

‘Susan and God’

Rachel Crothers’ 1937 play, “Susan and God,” at Theatre Rapport, is too ham-fisted and obvious in its dramaturgy to really stand up to a revival, but it does have a central element that speaks to us today.

Susan Trexel (Nancy Nye) is smitten with the power of a new religious “movement” (Crothers doesn’t need to name it). Her new task in life is to give her friends the Truth--even if they don’t want it. Think of New Age devotees or born-again Christians, and the play becomes a commentary on how Americans are particularly vulnerable to spiritual trends.

While Susan’s world is out of “The Great Gatsby,” the only part of Steven Nash’s unevenly cast and budget-pinched production that puts us there is Eleanor Hurt’s fine costume design. Susan is a monster, a continually obnoxious woman more into the movement than her own child. Joan Crawford (who starred in George Cukor’s 1940 film version) could play monsters. Nye, though able to give off the aroma of privilege, has a harder time.

Performances are at 1277 N. Wilton Place on Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m. through March 19. Tickets: $9; (213) 464-2662.