By Nelson Pressley
Special to The Washington Post
Saturday, March 29, 2008

Can solo shows compete for costume awards? "Bad Dates" makes you wonder.

Melissa Flaim shimmies into a kaleidoscope of outfits at the Olney Theatre Center, where her character waxes about being a single mom in modern Manhattan. And, well, the shoes alone are spectacular.

The opening scene is a Carrie Bradshaw fantasia as Haley Walker -- the mother/restaurateur/lonely-heart played by Flaim -- tries on dozens of high-end shoes looking for something that's just-right sexy and won't pinch. At least not much.

That the fashion is the most intriguing thing about the show is no reflection on Flaim, who wears the outfits as appealingly as she does her drawling Southern character. Playwright Theresa Rebeck can be splendidly tough and funny, but "Bad Dates" feels thin.

Except, that is, when Haley tells tales of the Romanian mafia infesting the restaurant. That catapults the peculiar play all the way into fairyland.

You could argue it's been there all along, with Haley trying on Jimmy Choos like a postmodern Cinderella trying to fit herself perfectly prior to the big night. But her big nights -- the first she's had in years as she finally reenters the dating scene -- are prosaically disappointing. The bad dates aren't epic or memorable; they're just duds.

Which isn't to say that the play is without charm. Haley's pretty adorable, a flurry of styles and contradictions that are more or less mirrored by the variety of her wardrobe. Tight leather skirt? Conservative pink twin set? Rebeck sneakily suggests that the choices available to can-do Haley are at times almost paralyzing, so why not try on a rescue fantasy?

There is something engaging, too, about Rebeck's strategy of inviting us into Haley's bedroom, where she talks to the audience as if we're all confidantes. Yes, now and then she dishes with her gay brother on the phone, or consults with her offstage teenage daughter about what to wear, but mostly it's just her and us.

Flaim's fine with that. She's a wonderfully relaxed performer, even when peeling a bra out from under a potentially winning blouse, or bouncing on the bed as she wiggles into snug jeans. As directed by Lee Mikeska Gardner, the show is often an informal ballet of trying things on, well grounded in Haley's changeable disposition of This is what I'm going to do/What the heck am I doing?

Milagros Ponce de Le¿n's set in the cozy Mulitz-Gudelsky Theatre Lab looks handsome and lived in, thanks to Andrew Griffin's intimate lighting and the costumes (Melanie Clark, ladies and gentlemen) draped all over the place. There's a mirror on a bathroom door where Haley can check herself out -- and as she evaluates herself, the audience sometimes audibly joins in.

"I am dressed, am I not?" Flaim's Haley asks rhetorically as she wears a near-backless blue dress. Indeed she is, though it's ultimately too much of a good thing. Rebeck's too smart to have concocted a mere fashion show, yet for all the tart observations and eventual emotional truth she weaves into "Bad Dates," her storytelling seldom wholly grabs the spotlight.

Bad Dates , by Theresa Rebeck. Directed by Lee Mikeska Gardner. About 100 minutes. Sound designer, Jarett C. Pisani. Through April 20 at the Olney Theatre Center, 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Rd., Olney. Call 310-924-3400 or visit http://www.olneytheatre.org.