Too many detours to Route 66

Lucidity Suitcase Intercontinental's premiere is full of surprises and charm - and as Doomsday warnings go,

Flamingo/Winnebago

is a gentle reminder that civilization as we have constructed it depends on fossil fuels, and once they run out, life as we live it will end.

An Indian gas-station owner (the excellent Muni Kulasinghe) one day suddenly shuts up shop, buys a huge Winnebago and hits the road, driving from New Jersey to Bombay Beach, Calif., because his grandfather once sent him a postcard from there. "Barbara," the voice of OnStar, becomes his companion.

At the same time, a bewildered and beleaguered guy (the multitalented Thaddeus Phillips, who also conceived, directed and designed this show), sets out in quest of information about his grandfather in Las Vegas. They meet various characters (Charlotte Ford, Jeremy Wilhelm are standouts) as they travel, eventually meeting each other on Route 66, where kitsch has replaced history.

There's a good band onstage (too often drowning out the dialogue), there are some effective and ineffective projections (the 3-D glasses seem to have no function), and there is an exceptionally clever, simple set. The show is way too long, with too many detours, like so many road trips.

Sweetie Pie.

Madi Distefano, whose wacky trailer-trash musical called

Eye-95

was a hit of the first Fringe and, again, in an update last year, chose the same setting - mythical Metro City - for her new play. Azuka Theatre is presenting

Sweetie Pie

, about the high-accident intersection of fame and chance.

The play, about a boy who knows little of his past, the mother who never saw him, and the rock-star life of both, is an update of a Greek tragedy. I won't say which one, because the 80-minute show is more fun when it's a surprise.

On opening night, Saturday, it unfolded awkwardly, then seemed to heat up suddenly. Some of this might be due to an occasional Fringe problem: not enough rehearsal. The Greek chorus was rag-tag, rarely beginning lines in unison. Too bad, because the commentary Distefano provided the chorus is droll, with an amusing attention to trite metaphor - and it moves the plot along.

Distefano herself overdoes her initial role as a nasty stepmother, but comes fully into her own when she portrays the unwed mom who long ago produced Our Hero and now, all grown up, commands stages like a queen. As for Mark, the boy snatched from his high-school mom and destined to be the king of rock and roll, Tobias Segal brings both a sweet vulnerability and a streak of defiance to the role; he's your basic waif waiting to be adopted by the world.

- Howard Shapiro

Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven.

Young Jean Lee's Theater Company is self named, so this should give some insight into the blunt force with which the playwright approaches her work. In

this exploration of Korean American identity (sort of), Lee wrings her hands, mocks her countrymen and women - Korean and American - and does everything she can to avoid committing to a plot.

A trio of Korean women, in candy-colored traditional dress, chatter and dance and hop around like video-game characters bent on destroying Becky Yamamoto's "Korean American," who in turn hopes to destroy them.

Tacked between these scenes are a warring white couple borrowed from playwright Edward Albee and clad in earth tones. They cross paths with the Koreans, but continue on, oblivious. The disconnect is jarring, and if you get lost, don't look to Lee for guidance. She's done her job by writing and capably directing her finely tuned cast. When Yamamoto and the trio join forces and apologize as a chorus "for bringing shame upon our country," Lee's Korean identity quietly recedes, leaving us with the white couple, still arguing, still oblivious, as though they were alone the whole time. As though nothing else mattered.- Wendy Rosenfield

Six of One. 11th Hour's newest musical is about friends and the ups and downs of their 30-something lives - married, single, straight, gay. The six singers also are talented actors.

Laura Catlaw's Kate is an irresistible flake; Michael Ponte makes us like and worry about Sam; Noah Mazaika plays his sweet, smart too-young boyfriend. Colleen Hazlett plays ultra-organized, cautious Karen; Meghan Heimbecker is the workaholic, managerial Bev; and Matthew Hultgren is her conflicted husband, Zach.

Scott Burkell's book and lyrics triumph over the temptation to make the show into a singing episode of Friends. Paul Loesel's music is difficult - edgy rather than melodic - and nobody falters. If Six of One seems to be in Sondheim's debt (think Company), one could do worse.

Megan Nicole O'Brien's direction moves the show through its many scenes with speed and precision. - Toby Zinman