STAGE REVIEW : TALE OF AMERICANA IN ‘DADDY’S DYIN’ ’

“Daddy’s Dyin’ (Who’s Got the Will?)” sounds like a vaudeville skit, or a very dumb comedy, but don’t be misled. Playwright Del Shores, director Sherry Landrum and eight actors have cast pearls on a sow’s ear of a premise. The result is both a funny and touching achievement at Theatre/Theater.

Shores’ comedy centers superficially on a family gathering prompted by the imminent death of doddering dad and the search for his will. Subconsciously, you cringe at the prospect of watching two acts of down-home simpletons carving one another up over their old man’s money.

But immediately something promising happens: Actress Judith Durand, playing a sister awaiting the arrival of her anxious relatives at the family home in Lowake, Tex., brightly captures the essence of her desperate character with a puff of her cigarette and her broad-beamed waddle around the living room. The outlook gets better with the arrival of each character, all of them so distinctive they seem to materialize from woodcuts.

Shores’ dialogue sparkles and his sense of structure propels momentum. Director Landrum’s staging on an otherwise cramped and uneventful set is a lesson in tightly calibrating a half-dozen evenly timed scenes. And the players--five women and three men--deceptively create an ensemble that ultimately fingerpaints a rich family portrait.

It’s quite an achievement, given the broad nature of the material. One rebellious sister, played by Rosemary Alexander (who wrote the play, “Bachelorette Party,” which runs alternate evenings in the same theater), bursts into the nervous/cynical, God-fearing family reunion with a longhaired musician who catalyzes events dramatically. Michael Hoit’s latter-day hippie is perfectly realized.

Another sister, a sweet, big muffin of a downtrodden wife, is vivified by Patrika Darbo. She beautifully pulls off with the unlikely musician a hesitant romantic scene that can only be described as wondrously sexy.

Events that would appear rather unplayable for serious comedic theater become marvelous bits of humor, such as anything bellowed by Molly McClure’s aging, uproarious in-law, adorned in an affectionate/ugly collection of house dresses (remember house dresses?). The whole production is a brash collection of surprises. Despite the melodramatic odds, it works. The playwright’s deft manipulation is flecked with the Capraesque, except that “Daddy’s Dyin’ ” can scorch with human blisters that burn.

The time is 1986 and this family (the surname is Turnover) may be Texan in vocal accent, but it’s as American as a gob of mud.

The other performers are equally strong: Mickey Jones’ redneck husband, Glenda Tremaine’s morally righteous sister and William Edward Phipps’ not-quite-ready-to-die papa (who would like to change his will but can’t remember where he hid it).

Performances at 1713 Cahuenga Blvd. in Hollywood run Saturdays and Sundays, 8 p.m., through March 28, (818) 985-6924.