Bestselling Book Series “Letters From a Nut” Debuts at Geffen Playhouse

“Letters From a Nut,” now playing at the Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater at The Geffen Playhouse in Westwood, is, well, a bit nutty.

It’s hard to call this a production. The Geffen refers to it as a “Spotlight Entertainment Series Event.” The show is a live presentation of the crazy correspondence found in a series of best-selling “Letters From a Nut” books by Ted L. Nancy, with a little stand up and video thrown in.

The show begins strong with Nancy (whose real name is Barry Marder) explaining his reasoning for starting to write the annoying letters, which are really penned pranks to a bunch of unfortunate customer service employees. Apparently the correspondence began out of boredom and noticing that a bag of Fritos included a message regarding sending feedback and comments.

The letters, and their responses sent back to Nancy, vary in tone. Some are funny, such as the request to the city of Huntington Beach for a permit for operating an Electronic Nose Blowing Machine, some are juvenile, such as the letters and video about finding packaging for a new product utilizing lost things found in a couch in snacks, and some are offensive, such as the exchange with Harriet Carter Gifts regarding electric chair, firing squad and gas chamber novelty items.

Nancy was a writer on “Seinfeld” (Jerry Seinfeld produced this presentation) and one can imagine Jerry and George sitting in the corner coffee shop amusing themselves about some of the subjects of the letters in this production, but “Letters From a Nut” is much like a lesser thought out, in bad taste, first draft episode of the ground breaking sitcom about nothing. Good comedy is a lot about editing material, and this is what “Letters From a Nut” lacks.

Credit goes to actress Beth Kennedy, who plays a dozen customer service employees having to respond to Nancy’s crazy letters. There’s also Sam Kwasman playing a sad clown who randomly enters for what seems to be no reason.

There are a few good laughs throughout the performance, mostly from Nancy’s stand-up routines in between the letter reading. Fans of the “Letters From a Nut” books will enjoy this production, but others might come away wanting to send Nancy a letter asking for a refund.