STAGE REVIEW : POLITICAL THEATER AT BOYD ST.

“Rank” informs us that Pentagon generals are crazies who refuse to grow up and not invade Nicaragua; that Nixon thought he was a brilliant schemer to the end; that single men with nothing else to do might end up shooting people. Don’t go to “Rank,” at the Boyd Street Theatre, expecting political theater with original thinking.

Jack Slater and Ed Harris’ “The Right Brothers,” about the single men (Slater and Robert Winley) and their holdup attempt, is sub-Shepard male ritual with exchanges in which the word uh is one of the deeper utterances.

Slater’s “Plan Your Parade Before You Invade” tries for the tone of a political cartoon--the generals’ uniforms do for war toys what Carmen Miranda did for bananas--but director Paul Silverman lets John Apicella and John Achorn shamelessly overact with no comic depth. Their performances, and the skit’s message, are obvious in a matter of moments. The scene goes on much, much longer.

Both of these crosscut, film style, with the third piece, titled “Everybody’s Doing It,” taken directly (with minimal editing) from Nixon’s Watergate tapes with advisers. Dan Lorge isn’t verbally up to it as Nixon, but David Katims as the “Presidential Advisor”--a ringer for John Dean--is utterly focused and aware of every nuance. He is like nothing else in the evening.

Performances at 301 N. Boyd St. Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Ends May 31; (213) 629-2205.