‘ALMOST PERFECT’ TALE OF INFIDELITY

Finally, a television sitcom writer has knocked out a first play that effectively disguises the playwright’s roots in half-hour comedy.

“Almost Perfect,” at the Santa Monica Playhouse, indeed has its share of winged one-liners and sitcom-styled “takes.” But the production earmarks a promising legit debut for writer Jerry Mayer. The subject is yet another variation on a yuppie relationship: The husband cheats on his wife as he wavers between marriage and romance (lust) before all the parties come to their senses, including the blonde who nearly breaks up the marriage.

This is predictable stuff, but Mayer writes with witty observation and director Martin M. Speer draws a particularly affable performance from Charles Levin as the married bounder. The production also benefits from a keen sense of orchestration among the set designer (Scott Heineman), lighting designer (Matthew O’Donnell) and the playwright’s artful structural technique.

Protagonist Levin frequently steps out of the narrative frame and talks directly to the audience, a rich, ingratiating touch. And scenic transitions are effortlessly propelled by a set of revolving panels and precision lighting.

Mayer, in short, immensely profits from smart and not inexpensive production support. Actress Alley Mills is hugely credible as the overorganized and compulsive wife (men are immature swine in the playwright’s view, but females are superior by default).

Todd Susman enjoys a crackling cynicism as a bemused but angry brother. Sandy Kerns, albeit gleaming, fails to relax into her role as the “other” woman. Norman Burton and Naomi Serotoff, as the anti-hero’s parents, lend fine support.

Performances at 1211 4th St., Santa Monica, Thursday-Saturday, 8 p.m., Sunday, 7 p.m., through Oct. 5 (213) 394-9779.

‘K2’ AT SKYLIGHT

Actors Christopher Roland and Peter Schreiner, with a nod to technical adviser Woody Compton and set designer John Sperry Wade, bring a raw slap of credulity to the mountain-climbing saga “K2” at the Skylight Theater.

We are on a narrow ledge of an ice wall just below the summit of Pakistan’s savage mountain, known as K2. One climber (Schreiner) has broken a leg in a fall. There is not enough extra rope for the pair to make it down. The wind is howling. The air is deadly cold.

Loosely inspired by real-life heroics on K2, playwright Patric Meyers has created a metaphor for life-and-death questions. Both men, one a liberal physicist and the other a rock-hard district attorney, emotionally strip one another before the inevitable and loving conciliation.

This is not great drama, but the production is superior. Forget the great basic questions of life, or what these ravaged guys say about women and the neutron bomb. But watch the two actors. They render superbly detailed and etched performances.

Their gear, their technical mountain-climbing preparation, and the resourceful use of girdings and platforms scaled by the healthy climber (Roland, who also co-produced) create a riveting physical experience. Director Michael Keusch earns a lot of rope for shaping the vivid performances.

Performances at 1816 1/2 N. Vermont Ave., Saturday and Sunday, 6 p.m., through Sept. 7 (213) 874-3678.

‘WATCH ON THE RHINE’

Lillian Hellman’s alarm against the intrigues and cruelty of the Nazis, “Watch on the Rhine,” is not dated so much by the dramatic standards of the time but rather because Hellman was too emotionally involved with the anti-Nazi theme to write an organic drama. What you have is an upper-class comedy of manners that jarringly turns into a melodrama. But in the spring of 1941, when the play took Broadway, who cared?

Nevertheless, the production at Theater 40 is smartly cast, with a sterling performance by Dennis Robertson as the decent, low key anti-Nazi, expertly set-designed by Joanne McMaster and fluidly directed by Ralph Senensky.

The casual verbosity in the opening act is languidly endless, but with the arrival of the principal antagonists (the dedicated Robertson and the vile European count played with coiled villainy by Dana Craig) events (melo)dramatically pick up.

There’s a sureness about the production that is disarming. Harriet Medin as the matriarch contributes a rich figure among the 11-member cast. And the domestic scenes in which the family entertains itself with the children (there are three and they’re quite good) is a wonderful, pre-electronic glimpse of another time.

At 241 Moreno Drive, Beverly Hills High School, Thursday-Saturday, 8 p.m., Sunday, 2 p.m. and 8 p.m, through Oct. 4 (213) 277-4221.

‘ANNA LUCASTA’

Another big Broadway hit from the same period was the all-black “Anna Lucasta” (1944). Today a black cast at Theater of Arts is having a roaring if artless time with this kitchen-sink opus about a girl gone bad.

Directed by Rai Tasco (who drunkenly weaves and falls about the stage as the weak, despicable father), this production verges unintentionally on burlesque and parody.

The production seems underrehearsed and haphazard, and much of the acting is excessive. Granted the play is not a subtle work. (Playwright Phillip Yordan originally wrote it for Polish actors in New York, but the play got its first life in Harlem and thus became a black play; Eartha Kitt and Sammy Davis Jr. starred in a 1959 movie version.)

The titular character, a hooker and classic victim, is much too overripe in the tough, strutting gait of actress Shy Jefferson. There is talent among the 14-member cast: Sam Nickens’ bartender, Frankie Albright’s noble mom, Cheryl Myers’ calm sister, and Ronn Jerard’s dawg of a lover. Producer Stanley Bennett Clay capably doubles up as the love-smitten suitor who rescues Anna from sin.

But director Tasco seems to have relinquished control to the actors, and the result is a hoot or a shambles, take your pick.

Performances at 4128 Wilshire Blvd., Monday-Wednesday, 8 p.m., runs indefinitely (213) 281-8443.