Some parts last forever in the public’s...

Some parts last forever in the public’s mind. For 11 years, Jack Gilford plugged Cracker Jack on television--and now, he says, “not a single day goes by that someone doesn’t come up to me and say ‘Cracker Jack.’ At the doctor’s office today, three people did it.”

The veteran character actor (who received Tony nominations for “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” and “Cabaret”) will get to face West Coast fans when he arrives at the Pasadena Playhouse for Tuesday’s opening of his one-man show, “How I Became an Overnight Success in 40 Years.”

“I sing songs, like my impression of ‘My Way’ (the same words, but I treat it differently) and ‘You Always Hurt the One You Love’ (and you kiss and pinch them to show it), and do pantomimes (to ‘Just a Gigolo’). I also do my impressions of animals (a chicken, an owl, a camel, a Russian wolfhound and an elephant), and I talk about the circumstances that got me into show business.”

The actor comes to town following the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s two-weeklong Gershwin celebration: a 32-piece orchestra and 40-piece choir backing concert versions of such fare as “Let Them Eat Cake” and “Of Thee I Sing” (both of which featured Gilford’s characterization of one Alexander Throttlebottom).

“Now I’m switching gears and changing my attitude for California,” he said cheerfully. “I’ve done this show once before--in Albany about four years ago--but not since, because it’s not that easy to do. And I have been busy enough.”

Just what happens in “Levitation”? It’s anybody’s guess. Craig Slaight, who’s directing Timothy Mason’s play at Theatre 40, is so determined to keep the events a secret that he’s not even putting up show stills in the house lobby.

“I don’t want to cheat anybody,” he explained. “This is a memory play, a subtle, magical story. There’s a young man at a crisis point in his life: he’s coming to grips with the forward motion of his career, the passing of family members. He leaves New York for Minneapolis--and has this very unusual evening. The theatrical convention allows him to come to grips with his problems in a way we wouldn’t expect him to.” The director (whose credits include “A Weekend Near Madison” and “And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little” at Theatre 40) paused for a moment. “I’m not going to say any more than that. The experience will be richer if people don’t know any more than this character does when he lands up on that porch.”

Slaight (who regards playwright Mason as “the up-and-coming Lanford Wilson of our time”) asserted that “there are no ‘Twilight Zone’ effects at all. It’s all played very simply and realistically. Yet the evening is magical, in the sense of people being able to speak poetic thoughts. . . . That doesn’t tell you anything, does it?”

On the other hand, “Teamsters Basement” (at the Cast Theatre) tells you up front exactly what it is. Thomas George Carter describes his new play “as a tragicomedy about the male, macho psyche, set in a Teamster’s basement.

“I’ve worked in a Teamster’s basement and a loading dock; I know these men,” the writer-actor explained. “I wanted to deal with their obsessions--women and sex--and also the other side, the part that’s open and scared and lonely: what’s there after you strip off the protective layers.

“A lot of things go on down in the basement that are secret, below the mainstream. The audience should feel as if they’re eavesdropping on something they haven’t seen. The two men are away from everyone, their guards are down--and periodically you see glimpses of their vulnerability. They’re the things that men in these occupations wouldn’t want you to know. After all, they have an image to protect.”

LATE CUES: “Pump Boys and Dinettes” sashays into its sixth month at the Las Palmas Theatre. Singer/actress Karla DeVito (whose Broadway credits include “Big River” and “The Pirates of Penzance”) has joined the cast.

East West Players’ summer workshop will take place July 20-Aug. 30. The program (open to students over 16) includes classes in acting, movement, voice and dance, plus guest artists, demonstrations and mini-workshops; (213) 660-0366).