‘BEVERLY HILLS,’ ‘VILLA!’ KEEP ELIZONDO ON THE GO

When it rains, it pours--and this week, Hector Elizondo is sitting in a very big puddle. By day, the actor/director is taping episodes for the upcoming television series “Down and Out in Beverly Hills.” By night, he’s staging the premiere of Donald Freed’s “Villa!,” opening Wednesday at the Bilingual Foundation of the Arts’ Theatre/Teatro.

“I didn’t plan it this way,” Elizondo noted. “But before I started rehearsals (he was originally slated to direct and perform in the play), I got this development deal with Disney, a wonderful deal you couldn’t just turn around and sneeze at. I had to tell the theater people I couldn’t direct. ‘Sure you can,’ they said. I said OK; I owed it to them to stick with it. So I’m there before and after work. I give lots of notes to the stage managers, then show up at the end of the week and clean up.

“And in the midst of all that,” he sighed, “I’m also buying and selling a house. The worst part of this is that you don’t have time to energize. It never comes back to you: It always goes out. And there’s just no time. This morning I was recording narration for the Southwest Museum. Then I’ve got more voiceovers during the next few weeks.”

“Down and Out,” inspired by last year’s hit movie of the same name, is set for April airing by the Fox Broadcasting Network. In it, Elizondo essays the role--originally played by Richard Dreyfuss--of Dave Whiteman, “the third-largest hanger manufacturer in the country.” Mike the Dog, who gained fame as Matisse, reprises his duties.

All of which represents quite a dramatic stretch from “Villa!,” a one-man show on the life of Gen. Francisco (Pancho) Villa, portrayed by Julio Medina. “You see a statue in a deserted park somewhere in Mexico,” Elizondo said, describing the setting. “Then night falls and the statue starts to talk.”

Among other things, we learn that Villa was born Porepeo Erango in Chihuahua, Mex., and grew up on a farm, illiterate, when a revenge killing sent him into the hills at 15. “What emerges is a military/guerrilla genius. When Villa marched into Mexico, they wanted to make him president, but he refused and set up his own cooperative of workers. Twelve thousand American troops were sent in to capture this ‘pesky bandit,’ but they never got him. In the end, he was assassinated--set up.

“The play is essentially a dream,” he added. “You as the audience are dreaming this, and Pancho Villa is trying to revive, wake up the viewer. This is not realistic. There are misrepresentations, interpretations, impressions . . . and what seeps through is very disturbing: our history with South and Central America, something which most people--including me--are incredibly ignorant of. So the story has its genesis in that.”

Continuing with the theater’s tradition of presenting bilingual productions, “Villa!” will be presented, on alternating nights, in English and Spanish.

A part of old Hollywood gets a face-lift--and a new equity-waiver stage--as William Sterritt’s “Joey” opens Friday in the Park View Stage (located on the fourth floor of the Park Plaza Hotel in the Mid-Wilshire district).

“John Batiz (the play’s director) took me over to this space last April,” recalled producer Brenda Carlin, “and it looked terrible! It had been a billiard room, had this long mahogany bar, red leather banquettes--and was absolutely filthy. I said, ‘Let me think about this.’ The following Wednesday I called back and said, ‘I think I’m insane, but . . . OK. Let’s do it.’ ”

Having spent most of her life in television production (for such artists as Steve Allen, Billy Crystal and Diana Ross--and her husband, comedian George Carlin), Carlin was burned out: “I wanted to move away from TV. But I’m married to a performer, I love live performance. I couldn’t drop out completely; I had to do something.”

The holdover pluses from her TV experience? “Knowing people, knowing how to put together a production, dealing with situations, costumers, lighting people. But this is just as much pressure, because it’s new for me. I’m used to television, where I have a huge budget and can do everything I want. This is a lot more hands-on. I’ve been out the last three days selling ads for my Playbill (program).”

The play itself “just jumped out at us when we were reading scripts,” she added. “It’s about the life of a comedian, (played by Martin Beck) which I have a lot of empathy for. Good story, good play. So it’s very exciting. I love the feeling of watching something come together--and in theater it’s so instant! You don’t even have to go into an editing room.” As for the specter of criticism: “Last week, we kept seeing reviews of the movie my husband’s in (“Outrageous Fortune”), and the comments have gone from one extreme to the other: either giving it lots of praise or tearing it to shreds. So I’m getting a lot of practice for my own reviews.”

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT . . . “The Kiss of the Spider Woman”: Manuel Puig’s drama, centering on the relationship between two men sharing a South American prison cell, opened recently at the Cast Theatre, eliciting comparisons to last year’s Oscar-winning film--and some mixed opinions about the overall effectiveness of the staging. In this paper, Dan Sullivan found the piece “true and touching,” but also noted an unevenness in the acting and felt that “the scenes outside the prison cell are so awkwardly handled that they hardly exist.”

The Daily News’ Tom Jacobs praised the change of medium: “Where film director Babenco showed us scenes from an imaginary movie, the entire play takes place in the jail cell. We ‘see’ the movie in our mind’s eye as Molina recites it--much as Valentin is ‘seeing’ it. Thus we are brought that much closer to the characters, while at the same time, the feeling of confinement isn’t broken.”

In his Drama-Logue review, David Galligan had much less to crow about, noting that “Repression creates energy, but there is nothing in this stage situation that rises above the mundane.” And Michael Lassell, in the Herald-Examiner, was really unimpressed: “The production renders Puig’s world of warring ideals and bodily fluids as a collection of cliches and a carton of stale soda pop.” Ouch!