Tom Lenk

"Will You Be My Special Friend?"

Mr. Lenk’s Neighborhood a Pot of Gold

Ever since the late great television milestone “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” spawned “Angel,” an equally successful spin-off from one of its core characters, talk of continuing yet another character’s journey through a separate entity has yet to cease among both fans and the shows’ creative teams.

During the last four years of “Buffy,” creator Joss Whedon expressed interest in recounting the disobedient past of earnest Watcher Giles with “Ripper,” and new chapters concerning everyone’s favorite rogue Slayer, Faith. While both potential spin-offs make way for more adventure, comedy, soap opera, and all other things Whedonesque, another “Buffy” cast member, Tom Lenk, may have struck a bit of gold with his new comedy stage show “Will You Be My Special Friend?”

Premiering January 5th at the Acme Comedy Club in Hollywood, Lenk took the stage in the first of four performances this month for a wincingly embarrassing and hysterical self-examination.

Using the set dressed as a Los Angeles apartment, a suited Lenk enters through the front door accompanied by fluttery keyboard, and addresses his audience much like Mister Rogers used to every morning. Swapping his dress jacket for a more casual one, and his loafers for sneakers, he even treats to warm songs about puberty, technology, his supportive parents, and other necessities before each segment, making significant use of a slideshow that few people, let alone actors, would have the gall to reveal so confidently to a house full of fans. What could have teetered on a wire of a typical ego-driven, over-indulgent self-love fest soon spirals downward - and nearly out of control - to unveil, much like his “Buffy” character, the geeky dreamer Andrew, a natural born storyteller.

Instances of humiliation and abasement anchor Lenk’s show, leaving plenty of room for the actor to, literally, laugh at himself, especially when earning sympathetic groans from his audience, continuing to assure that all he says, every scrap of overly appreciative fan mail, or hostile internet message board postings is 100% heartbreakingly true.

Occasionally he does skew the focus off himself, bringing his mother, Pam Lenk, on stage for a poetry reading that turns the cozy theatre into more of a living room than a playhouse; and his subtle contempt for the post-“Buffy” film choices of his co-stars (“Scooby Doo 2” anyone?) goes hardly without notice.

But when special guest and “Buffy” co-star Nathan Fillion drops by for an awkward reaction or two to Lenk’s dramatically expressive and rampantly imaginative display, joining the play’s only other character, Eunice (played by Patty Wortham), a grating riff on the current Liza Minelli, in a transcript reading of an actual online brawl between three preteen girls debating just how much of a leprechaun Lenk resembles, Team Whedon may have found its most assuring bet. Lenk has a shiny presence and a rare comedic beat that works swell for fiction, but the thought of him gracing the small screen nightly, singing kooky songs and chatting up more of his “special friends” in a mock apartment setting, divulging more painfully intimate details, is more welcome than another doom and gloom serial in the Whedonverse.

“Will You Be My Special Friend?” runs every Wednesday this January, with new “special” guests TBA. Check http://www.tomlenk.com regularly for more info.