Bouncing to the Sister Piece ‘Shakers’

If you loved John Godber’s “Bouncers,” welcome “Shakers.”

‘Shakers’ is a sister piece to ‘Bouncers,’ ” said actor Dan Gerrity, who’s producing. (Written by Godber and fellow Briton Jane Thornton, it opens this weekend at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble.)

“It’s as different as sometimes brothers and sisters can be. Whereas the humor in ‘Bouncers’ came from the violence and aggression of these working-class denizens, this is a softer view of the working class; it’s a valentine, a sweet confection. It’s about four women, cocktail waitresses, who also play (among many characters) men who try to pick them up and younger versions of themselves.”

As for similarities to “Bouncers” : “It’s got very quick changes. A job description is done in verse (recalling “Bouncers’ ” rap motif)--and people snap in and out (of character), announcing who they’re going to be. Of course, it’s steeped in John Godber’s working-class politics.” All of which is very familiar turf for Gerrity, one of the original cast members of “Bouncers” (with Jack Coleman, Gerritt Graham and Andrew Stevens) when it premiered at the Tiffany in 1986.

To counter what he calls the “powerlessness of being an actor--not being able to work till someone offers you a job,” Gerrity has begun seeking out his own producing projects with Ron Link, who cast him in John Bunzel’s “Delirious” (1985) and “Bouncers” and who is now directing “Shakers.” He also served as assistant director to Link on two Australian productions.

“I’d been a waiter,” he said. “I finally decided to stop ‘waiting’ and throw myself into it.” Since then, he’s taking credit for discovering a number of scripts, including “Shakers,” “The Grace of Mary Traverse” (to be staged by L.A. Theatre Works later this year), “Emerald City” (he got beaten to the punch by David Merrick) and an Australian project he hopes to stage with his “Delirious” and “Bouncers” buddies.

Does all this satisfy his acting passions? “No,” Gerrity said pleasantly. “Sometimes it makes it more necessary. So I do plays when I can--and TV (“Cheers,” “Head of the Class”). I try to keep busy.”

A famous theatrical opening night is re-created in Mark Blitzstein’s “The Cradle Will Rock,” bowing Wednesday at the Morgan-Wixson Theatre in Santa Monica as part of CalArts in Town.

“The play was written in 1936 and produced in ‘37,” said director Robert Benedetti. “It started when Blitzstein played a song (‘Nickel Under the Foot’) for Bertolt Brecht that he’d written for a prostitute. Brecht encouraged Blitzstein to write a play on that theme, the various ways people sell out. Six weeks later, Blitzstein produced this opera--opera because out of an hour and a half, only five minutes are not set to music. It’s somewhat like Kurt Weill but lighter, with more humor. It is an overtly communist play. More than leftist.”

A production was assembled for the Federal Theatre Project by John Houseman and Orson Welles, but canceled just before opening--due, says Benedetti “to cold feet by the FTP administration, who thought it was politically unwise to support radical material. So on opening night, when audiences began to congregate outside the theater, (cast members) Howard Da Silva and Will Geer began entertaining them--and then led the group two miles down the street--picking up people as they went,” settling into an alternate, bare-stage theater, where they performed the piece.

“It was a wonderful success and got lots of press,” Benedetti said. “A few weeks later, it opened on a commercial basis, but they kept it the original way--without sets or props.” Buoyed by some helpful hints from Houseman, the director and his 16 actors are hoping to evoke not only that bare-bones production, but the opening night escapades as well. “When audiences arrive, they’ll be locked out of the theater. Actors in ’37 costumes will be singing ’37 songs. A truck will come by, they’ll follow it, then they’ll ‘break into’ the theater.”

Will the winner be “Savage in Limbo,” “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” or “Slaughterhouse on Tanner’s Close”? Tony Abatemarco, Georgia Brown or John Malkovich? Find out March 28 when “Golden Girls”’ Bea Arthur and Rue McClanahan emcee the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards dinner at the Sheraton Grande Hotel. Tickets ordered today cost $36; Monday, the price goes up to $40. Information: (213) 465-0070.

CRITICAL CROSS FIRE: Donald Margulies’ comedy, “What’s Wrong With This Picture?,” about a contemporary family surprised by the reappearance of the newly deceased mother, opened recently at Van Nuys’ Back Alley Theatre.

Said The Times’ Sylvie Drake: “The funny series of scenes don’t know it, but they’re in search of a play. . . . Otherwise, this production--the acting, direction, design and dialogue--are first-rate, and, if you’re into Jewish family humor, frequently hilarious. The trouble is, of course, it’s not quite enough.”

From Kathleen O’Steen in Daily Variety: “The largely middle-aged and presumably Jewish audience cackled hysterically to the verities of life for an extended, old-style Jewish family. . . . (Yet) paradoxically, the script is so laden with inside Yiddish expressions that Margulies tends to obfuscate the message he tries to get across.”

In Drama-Logue, T. H. McCulloh found the play “warm and insightful, the kind of comedy you like to just sink into for a couple of hours and think about on the way home. What’s right with this picture is Stuart Damon’s clean and crisp direction and the performances of Allan Miller as Mort and James Stern as his 17-year-old son Artie.”

Tom Jacobs, in the Daily News, was far less impressed: “A better title might be ‘My Mother the Corpse.’ Margulies’ play is pure TV sitcom; it takes an important issue and trivializes it through cliches, one-liners and one-dimensional characters. It’s about death, but it can’t be described as a black comedy; it’s too lightweight and superficial to earn that designation.”