KAMEL SPARKLES IN ‘STARRY NIGHT’

Stanley Kamel’s shrugs vainly try to conceal a thousand neuroses. His eyes pierce, yet they’re also beady. No one is funnier at portraits of overwrought show-biz honchos.

This year, he’s playing a producer in S. L. Diamond’s “A Starry Night in Casper,” at the Beverly Hills Playhouse; last year, it was a director in “Light Up the Sky,” at Room for Theatre. His value is more obvious this year, because no one else in “Starry” is worth watching. Whenever he leaves the stage, “Starry” loses its star and sags badly.

Diamond’s play wasn’t necessarily written that way. Its ostensible protagonist is King, a Wyoming rancher (Kim Loughran), whose life is invaded by Kamel and company after their plane crashlands on his spread. We’re supposed to be charmed by King’s straight-arrow smile and amused by the change in his personality after Kamel recruits him for his latest picture.

But Loughran and his cohort Marshall Bell appear uncertain of their lines and their characterizations. It isn’t entirely their fault. Diamond or director William Haugse might explain to them why King, who’s supposedly a paragon of can-do stability, doesn’t even bother to leave his house to check out a fatal plane crash in his own back yard.

The other members of the Hollywood contingent, Melody Anderson and Martin Kove, have a few bright moments, and Diamond has written some clever lines. But Kent Pierce’s set doesn’t add much; how can King run 38,000 acres from such a tiny desk?

No matter--Kamel’s on the job.

Performances are at 254 S. Robertson Blvd., Beverly Hills, Fridays through Sundays at 8 p.m., through March 2; (213) 874-3678.

‘LIZ AND MARY’

The two one-acts at Galaxy Stage might have come from different galaxies. The first is a droll exercise in artifice; the second is an earnest psychological drama.

Phoebe Wray directed both plays. Her work on the first, “Liz and Mary,” is more assured--perhaps because she also wrote it. Set in the present, “Liz” is a round of chitchat between Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots: a coupla of white ghosts sitting around talking.

The two have arrived to perform in yet another play about their mutual history. But neither playwright nor script show up, so they take the opportunity to drink some tea and Ripple wine, to ask each other a few questions and to reflect on their own lives and legends.

Occasionally the conversation rises above gossip, but no one stays serious for long. Bonnie Snyder is a sly, authoritative Elizabeth. Kit van Zandt is almost as good as Mary, though her English isn’t as carefully spoken ( opera sounded like upper ). James Albright’s period costumes are properly at odds with the tacky set.

In the second play, “Ceremony,” David Wicinas tried to cram too much into one scene: grief over a young boy’s death, revenge against the toxic dumper who may have killed him, the healing power of friendship and more. It seems superficial, despite fleshed-out work from actor Peter E. Girard.

Performances are at 5421 Santa Monica Blvd., Sundays through Tuesdays at 8 p.m.; (213) 469-6605.

‘INSTAPLAY’

It isn’t enough that the “Instaplay” cast must improvise an entire musical comedy from an audience-supplied title suggestion each Saturday night. Last Saturday it also had to restrict its movements to the edges of the stage at the Cast-at-the-Circle. The Instaplayers had to work around the model of Western terrain that’s used in “The Road Not Taken,” the show that’s currently sharing their theater.

The players are nothing if not resourceful, though. Director/narrator Bill Steinkellner turned the evening’s winning title, “Sex and Death in High Society,” into a turbulent Texas soap opera, which afforded his cast the opportunity to use the other show’s set as a giant map of Texas, a mammoth cake at a charity ball, a family crest, a fancy tomb and a slice of the great outdoors--on which we could follow the progress of a gang of kidnapers.

In fact, despite the cramped quarters, “Sex and Death” included more wide-angle “action”--and more improvised dance--than I recalled from my last encounter with “Instaplay.” True, the play didn’t make much sense, but the spirit of play was what mattered, and it was infectious.

Now in their third year, the Instaplayers perform each Saturday at 10:30 p.m., at 804 N. El Centro Ave.; (213) 462-0265.

‘MONSTER IN DISGUISE’

The script Carl Rhodes wrote for “The Monster in Disguise,” at Inner City Cultural Center, could have served one of the duller “women’s pictures” turned out by Hollywood in the ‘40s. But the Hollywood casting, directing, acting and designing were never this bad.

One supporting performance, in particular, bounces off the bottom of the scale and becomes entertaining for its camp value. Somehow, I get the feeling this wasn’t intended by producer/director Cecil Rhodes.

Mercifully, only three performances remain: tonight and Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 3 p.m., at 1308 S. New Hampshire Ave.; (213) 737-4060.