Brittanie Gunn Photo by Bob Crowe

Tesseract Theatre's Hot for T-Rex is a great dark comedy, though it may help to imagine Stephen King's "Misery," only the other way around: a writer tracks down the authors of hostile online readers' reviews, and breaks into their homes to exact her revenge. You know how it is, some creative person spends months or years of hard work on a book or a play or a movie, and then some jerk spends thirty minutes gleefully tearing it apart (this usually takes me a good two days).

But even if you're not a critic, you'll still feel the icy hand of Death closing around your neck, as actress Brittanie Gunn towers over her audience, waiting for a succession of unseen hostages to regain consciousness, after a quick bludgeoning. With a mad glint in her eye, she then lectures them on the niceties of reviewing, and tries to make it clear that books—about prehistoric women, who somehow always seem to end up having carnal relationships with horrific, predatory reptiles from one million years B.C.—ought not to be so blithely cast aside.

Taylor Gruenloh, Ms. Gunn's frequent collaborator at Tesseract Theatre, wrote and directs this taught, wicked, ghastly and wonderful little play, which features two or three bodice-ripping snippets from books with titles like "The Flirtatious Era." Tellingly, these excerpts may involve descriptions of massive dinosaur genitalia, as one of the great extinct beasts looms over its pelt-wearing heroine, shuddering its steamy breath down on her, as she cowers in fear and wonderment.

And so on.

It's also a reminder of the concocted nature of modern publishing, where Mia (Ms. Gunn) talks about a picture on the back of her books of a willowy blonde lady, supposed to represent her to the reader. It is only one of the many slights she's endured since entering the world of words. They add up, but of the three or four different people she comes to call on in this squeal-inducing little exercise, it is an old college professor who seems to have hurt her the most. She reads from his lengthy critique, a written assessment that grows more and more deliciously sardonic, until the police are ready to storm the house.

Great storytelling (about awful storytelling) with a hilarious sexual backdrop. Through August 26, 2017, at the St. Lou Fringe Festival, the Kranzberg Arts Center, 501 North Grand (between SLU and the Fox Theatre. For more information visit www.stlouisfringe.com.

Featuring: Brittanie Gunn

Technical Assistance: Mike Gasparich