A DREARY ‘EDEN’ WITH A HAPPY TAG

The name of the trailer park where Shroeder Duncan lives--”Eden Court”--is dripping with irony. If this dreary place is the Garden of Eden, imagine what hell must be like. As Shroeder turns 30, he surveys his dead-end job, his simpering wife, his stale surroundings and his distance from God, and he decides the real Garden of Eden must be in . . . Australia. Yeah, Australia--that’s the ticket.

Murphy Guyer’s play called “Eden Court” and Matthew Dunn’s performance as Shroeder express this man’s funk so convincingly that it’s hard to believe the happy ending Guyer tacks on. Nor do we believe all of Guyer’s early brush strokes either--especially his shallow portrait of Shroeder’s wife Bonnie (Sally Brown), whose household mishaps are reminiscent of Lucy Ricardo’s, without being as funny. Guyer hasn’t decided how light a comedy this is.

Still, Jules Aaron’s staging for International City Theatre is about as good as this play is going to get. Dunn steams and snorts well, and Brown dips Bonnie’s hysteria in sweetness. Sherry Adamo is rather touching as Bonnie’s beleaguered best friend, and Jeff Paul does what’s required as Shroeder’s.

Mark Donnelly collected a dozen awful doodads for his cutaway trailer, and costumer Cathy Crane created some comedy from two disparate pairs of underwear.

Performances are at Clark Avenue and Harvey Way on the Long Beach City College campus, Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 2 and 7:30 p.m., through June 15; (213) 420-4275.

‘BURKE BYRNES’

Burke Byrnes comes from a family of cops--hence the title of his autobiographical monologue, “Burke Byrnes: America’s Finest.” Somewhere along the line, though, he left a life that seemed to point inexorably toward the police force and became an actor--an actor who frequently plays cops, but also one who’s eager to tell us about how he sold sexual favors in Spain and meditated with Swami Muktananda in Oakland.

Byrnes is a skilled raconteur (although he should clarify one of his first stories, something about a night watchman), and he conveys the impression that his 90-minute oral memoir is a tell-all affair. But in fact he omits what would appear to be the most dramatic part of his narrative--his passage from an ex-Marine in Long Island to an actor in Hollywood, from tough guy to Mr. Sensitive (who takes this opportunity to apologize to any gays in the audience for the gay-bashing of his misspent youth).

He also sidesteps almost completely his 25-year marriage, and we hear more about his experience with a goat than we do about his experiences with women.

Apparently Byrnes wants to focus on his relationship with his father. If so, he should shorten and sharpen his show by eliminating the extraneous. If, on the other hand, he wants to tell us the story of his life, he’ll have to edit out even more--in order to include the critical missing links. In the meantime, despite its flaws, “Burke Byrnes” never bores, thanks to its creator’s sinewy performance.

It’s at the Beverly Hills Playhouse, 254 S. Robertson Blvd., Sundays at 2:30 p.m., with a Saturday performance this week only at 8 p.m., until June 29; (213) 687-4122.

‘THE ZOO’

Director Clyde Ventura has concocted a mildly charming divertissement out of Theatre West’s production of “The Zoo,” an obscure operetta by Sir Arthur Sullivan and Botton Rowe. We enter the memory of an American accountant (Joseph Lucas, who looks too young to wallow in the past; fortunately, his narration is brief). He recalls the summer when he was in a stock production of “The Zoo.” First we see the actors making up before the show, joshing and griping, then we see them do “The Zoo.”

Nothing goes terribly wrong.

Though Ventura’s staging probably relies more on mime--and less on sets and props--than the original did, he hasn’t otherwise tampered with a show that was already a satire (of operatic conventions) when it was produced in 1875.

The framing device, which appears again at the end, is used to increase the nostalgia, not to make fun of anything. In the process, it also extends the show to a suitable length and explains why the actors sound American and why some look barely out of high school.

“The Zoo” itself turns out to be a frothy nothing. Its funniest character, at least as played by Kathy Garrick at Theatre West, is a lower-class street peddler named Eliza (had Shaw seen this?), who fears she’ll have to choose between her true love (Doug Carfrae) and her friends, the zoo animals. Garrick and Carfrae display strong, graceful voices under Glenn A. Mehrbach’s musical direction.

This creampuff clocks in at less than an hour, which is just about right. Performances are at 3333 Cahuenga Blvd. West, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 3 p.m. (featuring a light lunch), through June 8; (213) 851-4839.

‘PRIMARY COLORS’

Lynn S. Rosen’s book of verse, “Primary Colors,” “deals with the many parts of being one person” and “the need to be considered in total,” according to the notes on the back cover. Yet in Rosen’s dramatization of her own poems, at Group Repertory Theatre, the “many parts” overwhelm the “one person”--and even the parts aren’t all that edifying.

Rosen has assigned her poetry to four characters, identified somewhat arbitrarily by the colors yellow, gray, red and blue (shades of Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls . . . “). The women who play the parts in Bert Rosario’s staging are of such different physical types that the unifying voice of the poet virtually disappears. The result is disorganized and diffuse.

The same material might fare better in a more traditional poetry reading. Rosen herself, or a single skilled actress, would connect the dots between the poems better than a cast of four--particularly this cast, whose vocal abilities are less than inspiring. We also wouldn’t be distracted by the clutter of Stan Mazin’s choreography, Christopher Brewer’s ugly costumes and Bruce Cameron’s flashing lights.

The only production extra that isn’t a detriment is the music of Rosen and Paca Thomas, performed by Thomas. The pop-flavored melodies and arrangements of “Only Lonely” and “Love at Taco Bell” are relatively rousing.

Performances are at 10900 Burbank Blvd., North Hollywood, Fridays through Sundays at 8 p.m. through July 5; (818) 769-PLAY.