'VENUS IN ORANGE' IS SO LAST WEEK.

Byline: Katherine Karlin Correspondent

SOMEWHERE - far, far away - there is a land where dropping Paris Hilton's name is hip and edgy, where a debate on the pros and cons of Britney Spears constitutes rigorous discourse, and where a woman faking an orgasm counts as fresh and outrageous entertainment. If you know where that place is, please tell Paula Cizmar and Laura Shamas, the writers of ``Venus in Orange,'' an interminable string of cliches about the lives of women that is now on stage at the Victory Theatre Center.

``Venus in Orange'' wraps the myth of Aphrodite around monologues that claim to represent modern women, but the sketches are so free of real-life detail that the speakers never emerge as individuals, but as Everywomen in stock situations. Everywomen, that is, if every woman you know obsesses about looks and love. Oddly, for a celebration of a goddess, these women are excruciatingly victimized - by their mothers, by the fashion industry, by Brazilian body waxers and, above all, by men.

Want to hear about the tyranny of cosmetics? This is the play for you. Philanderers? Get it here. Married men who promise to leave their wives? Check. Physical abuse? Natch.

Don't blame the eight women who appear on stage. They do their best. Shonnese C.L. Coleman presides with grace and authority, and Randi Lynne Weidman, in a brief sketch about a woman whose friend works in a breast implant factory, endeavors to bring a little characterization to her role. (This is the only sequence in which a woman discusses work, although why the playwrights remove us from the action by having a woman discuss her friend's job, rather than presenting us with the factory worker herself, is one of the puzzling creative choices here.)

``Venus in Orange'' is so familiar and warmed-over that one of the actors actually says, ``He's just not that into you,'' intoning the dating self-help coinage of the moment. By this time, however, this celebration of women may have you too depressed to care. Fortunately, most working women playwrights have larger concerns. Thank goddess.

VENUS IN ORANGE - One star

Where: Victory Theatre Center, 3326 W. Victory Blvd., Burbank.

When: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays; through July 3.

Tickets: $20 to $22. Call [phone].

In a nutshell: Nothing new in this hackneyed look at women's lives.