DIFFERENT KIND OF HERO

Look, up there in the sky! It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s . . . not “Superman IV.” From a different comic book comes a different superhero: “Captain Intrinsic,” opening Friday at Theatre Exchange.

“It’s about a kid who goes in search for Captain Intrinsic--and finds he’s not the hero everyone expected,” said playwright R. T. Johnson. “He’s defeated all the bad guys. Now he’s old, fat and bald; he’s doing product endorsements. But then some bad guys break out of Irrevocable State Prison and he has to become Captain Intrinsic again: save America and redeem himself in Charlie’s eyes.

“It’s all a little satirical,” Johnson said, “though the things we satirize we’re solidly behind: Middle-American values. You see, they really are the right values; that’s why we have them. ‘Truth, Justice, and the American Way’ do exist--but they’re nebulous. When you look at Oliver North, you see that heroism has its inherent contradictions. A lot of the time, heroism is to be admired more than the hero.”

Dependency--on food, drink, drugs, wheelchairs and people--is the theme of Bruce Reisman’s “The Fresca Wars,” opening Thursday at Room for Theatre.

The play focuses on four grown-up siblings: the oldest brother, a B-movie star newly released from the Betty Ford Center; the youngest brother, a rock star who’s come in need of cash; a middle brother, Bobby, who’s suffered brain damage in a car accident that killed their parents; and a sister who’s been taking care of the wheelchaired Bobby--and has since gained a lot of weight.

“They’re all dependent on something,” Reisman said. “The older brother is dependent on alcohol, the sister is dependent on food, the kid in the wheelchair is dependent on the sister. And the sister’s been keeping him in a chair as an excuse not to get on with her own life. At the end, Bobby--who’s supposedly been causing all the turmoil--finally gets to say what he wants, which is, ‘I want to be an ordinary person. I want to be left alone, to not be taken care of.’ ”

Said Reisman, “This is my ninth play--and my first socially significant one. And in some ways, it is educational--like ‘Creeps,’ but not as heavy. We try to bring as much Neil Simon into it as possible.”

LATE CUE: Jane Kean (of “Honeymooners” fame) and Cliff Norton (“The Russians Are Coming,” “Harry and Tonto”) take to the stage as the “surviving spouses of a friendly foursome” in Richard Baer’s new romantic comedy, “Embraceable You,” opening Thursday at the Melrose Theatre. Tom Troupe directs.

CRITICAL CROSSFIRE: It’s Joe Orton summer in Los Angeles, as “Loot” (at the Tiffany) has been joined by the Taper Rep productions of “Loot” and “Entertaining Mr. Sloane.” The former tells of the macabre goings-on with a sack of ill-gotten booty and a certain dead Mrs. McLeavy; the latter centers on the sexual and criminal escapades of raffish young Mr. Sloane.

From The Times: Sylvie Drake said of “Loot,” “Some plays are earnest, some literate, some zing you where you live. Those of Joe Orton are unabashedly perverse. They let you hear logic where you thought none existed, make you laugh in the blackest of contexts.” And from Dan Sullivan: “ ‘Sloane’ isn’t what you would call a clean play, but you’ll never see a more cleanly acted one. (Director John) Tillinger’s company (Barbara Bryne, Maxwell Caulfield, Gwyllum Evans and Joseph Maher) are playing Mozart up there.”

Richard Stayton, in the Herald-Examiner likewise enjoyed both shows. “Tillinger understands Orton’s every dirty word. He knows this is more satire than farce. Above all, he realizes that this ‘world run by fools’ is populated with real people, not clowns. Orton’s stage universe may be absurd, scatological, embarrassingly familiar, but it’s never ridiculous. His people may speak with lunacy, but in another context the same words would be eloquent.” Stayton also had praise for actors Caulfield, Evans, Bryne and Peter Frechette and especially Maher (“sublime”).

From Louis Chunovic in the Hollywood Reporter: “(The plays) squeeze every last laugh out of the playwright’s gallery of celebrated grotesques. Audiences are delighted by both of these wickedly funny plays, howling at the Feydeauvian bits of frantic stage business and guffawing at the acid epigrams (particularly in ‘Loot’). One wonders, though, if discomfort rather than catharsis sets in after the laughter dies down. Who and what, after all, do we find so amusing?”