Production values are minimal, but there’s maximum laughter to be found in The Twylight Zone: The 6th Dimension, David Gallic’s cleverly written, ingeniously staged parody of the iconic 1960s TV series of a differently spelled name.

The Twylight Zone’s four 24-minute segments pay tongue-and-cheek tribute to a quartet of classic Twilight Zone episodes, introduced by assorted cast members doing their best Rod Serling.

First up is The Hitchhiker, which has a 20something would-be Hollywood starlet encountering the same bug-eyed ride-seeker over and over again and again on her solo car trip from New York to L.A.

“From this point on,” The Twylight Zone’s first Rod Serling warns us, “Nancy Adams’s companion on her road trip to California will be terror … and its friend, uncomfortableness.”

She’ll also be accompanied by her thoughts, voiced by an identically dressed Nancy double behind her. Not only that, but the helpful local she picks up when she runs out of gas has his own backseat double too.

Still, that’s nothing compared to the shock Nancy experiences when she phones her mother back home in the Big Apple and discovers…

Next up is arguably one of the original series’ most famed episodes, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, remade in 1983 for the Twilight Zone movie and again in 2019 for the Jordan Peele TV reboot, Gallic’s stage parody making it a grand total of four.

Black-and-white TV fans will likely recall a very young William Shatner as airplane traveler Robert Wilson, who gets the shock of a lifetime when a glance out the airplane window reveals a gremlin perched on the wing, not exactly what s traveler hopes to see when flying 20,000 above the ground.

The Twylght Zone’s Robert fares no better than Shatner did, and pity the man’s poor wife who gets drenched in a series of water-bottle mishaps, not to mention the decidedly creepy talking doll that gets foisted on our horrified hero by an obnoxious tot.

Like the 1961 episode Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?, Gallic’s Will the Real Alien Please Stand Up? unfolds at a roadside diner where a bus driver and his seven passengers have debarked for a food-and-bathroom break.

The only trouble is, the driver now counts eight passengers in all, meaning that one of the must be … not from this earth!

Since The Twylight Zone cast numbers six in all, writer-director Gallic has his actors executing multiple rapid-fire character changes in a segment that also features an inspired take-off on Sondheim’s “Your Fault” from Into the Woods.

Last up is Gallic’s spoof of The Four Of Us Are Dying, the tale of Arch Hammer, a man with the superhuman ability to change his face at will, a concept cleverly spoofed at the Sherry Theater by having actors hold up oval pix of each other’s faces as they share the role of Arch.

 The Twylight Zone: The 6th Dimension scores high marks for costumes, wigs, and assorted lighting effects, though the show’s very minimal scenic designs reveals its shoestring budget.

It scores high marks too for its video projections and montages, including a mix of actual TV commercials from the 1960s: Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble advertising Winston cigarettes on network TV, a medley of 10-second spots that Jim Henson and his Muppets did for Wilkins Coffee, and a deliciously naughty doctoring of a Folgers Instant Coffee ad in which a 1960s couple argue over the foul taste of her BLEEP.

None of this would work nearly as well if Chase Anderson-Shaw, Jack Bernaz, Jess Cashin, Taylor Eden, Shilo Rayne, and Lilli Simerman didn’t prove themselves sketch-comedy masters in more roles than I could possibly count under Gallic’s snappy direction.

The Twylight Zone: The 6th Dimension is produced by Gallic and Tatiana Bob. Adyn Wood is assistant director.

The bigger a Rod Serling fan you are, the more likely you are to relish The Twylight Zone: The 6th Dimension, but even those who’ve never seen the original series (or its numerous imitators, or its pair of reboots) are sure to provide Gallic’s spoof with a laugh track to do any live-audience sitcom proud.

The Sherry Theatre, 11052 Magnolia Avenue, North Hollywood.
www.TheTheaterGalaxy.com

–Steven Stanley
August 5, 2022

Tags: David Gallic, Los Angeles Theater Review, The Sherry Theater