STAGE REVIEW : A Sassy ‘Shakers’ at the Odyssey Theatre

In John Godber’s British universe, men bounce, women shake.

His play “Bouncers” (about four nightclub bouncers and their bored and disaffected lives) was acclaimed two years ago in Los Angeles. Now the UK/LA ’88 Festival and the Odyssey Theatre have brought us “Shakers,” also written by Godber with Jane Thornton. In almost every way, it is “Bouncers’ ” female counterpart.

Here four bored and mildly disaffected young waitresses in a London cocktail and wine bar give as good as they get, caricature their male clientele, discuss their lives (auditions to abortions) and generally keep us swiftly and sassily entertained for about 90 minutes.

These women, like most women, seem better equipped to cope than the young swells we met in “Bouncers.” They take the affronts from their customers with a shrug of their Teflon shoulders, look down their noses at the awful concoctions they drink (“It looks like vomit with sprinkles on top”), recognize a tall story when they hear one and, on the whole, have a jollier time teasing one another than the chaps in “Bouncers” did.

The sexual politics are sunnier here. The playfulness is so broad that it sometimes achieves the stature of the animated cartoon. These women are tough. And they often talk in rhymed couplets, their cadence reminiscent of the bad rhymes that pop up in Caryl Churchill’s “Serious Money.” (Is this a peculiarly British affliction?)

Mel (Yeardley Smith), Carol (Kristin Lowman), Nicki (Leslie Sachs) and Adele (Cameron Milzer) handle the fear of pregnancy as handily as they do an unwanted sexual pass. All in the night’s work. But Godber and Thornton do give us a touch of the darker side with which to complete the portraits. These more personal images come in the form of monologues, none more moving that Nicki’s description of her grandmother’s stroke, but each in its place at its time.

This structure is identical to the one displayed in “Bouncers”--close ensemble work, punctuated by solo turns. The masculine grid of “Bouncers” has been replaced by a curved black-and-white bar (Fred M. Duer designed this considerably less splashy set as well) and Ron Link, who also staged the other play, has directed with a gentler, more compassionate touch. There’s still a rhythmic, steady beat, but it’s less frantic than it was in “Bouncers.” The whole tone is more relaxed.

Not surprisingly, the problems of style over content that existed in the male play prevail in the female one too. The methodology is superior--staccato dialogue, women playing men, cartoonish exchanges, touching monologues--but the material is thin, the level of experience predictable and the whole evening a pleasantly clever game.

The four actors are not yet totally comfortable in their skins, having taken on (and very well, too) broad Cockney accents and sharply stylized movement, but they’re having real fun, the surest sign that comfort may follow.

Sylvia Jahnsons designed the spiffy mock-tuxedos for the waitresses and Nathan Wang again provided superior original compositions and sound design, as he had for “Bouncers.” No wonder the production, for all its integrity, smacks unavoidably of deja vu. Flippant and entertaining deja vu.

Performances at 12111 Ohio Ave. (near Bundy) run Wednesdays through Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 7:30 and 10 p.m., Sundays at 7 p.m., until April 24. No performance April 3. Tickets: $13.50-$17.50; (213) 826-1626.