STAGE REVIEW : A New Edition of Groundlings Madness

Unlike the Beatles album that inspired the title, “Groundlings: The White Album” is compact and concise.

The Groundlings don’t allow their sketches to linger beyond their proper length. The improvisations, at least at the early show Saturday, were conspicuously free of floundering. Stan Wells, who has taken over the direction of the first-string Groundlings revues from Tom Maxwell, has maintained the group’s standards.

Mindy Sterling cracked me up more than anyone else in this edition of Groundling madness, partially because she cracks her own face up into a thousand pieces, the better to portray her gallery of grotesques.

First she’s a rude, nervous brat in a doctor’s office waiting room, frantically thumbing through magazines as she interrogates her fellow patients. Then she’s the long-suffering clerk at a traffic court, listening to a litany of abuse from a ticketed driver. Finally, she’s an aging beach bunny in a revival of the Frankie-and-Annette genre.

That beach movie sketch is an example of the Groundlings’ reliance on tried-and-true (and tired?) topics of satire; a greater sense of adventure in the choice of subjects might make each Groundling show more special. But there is no denying that they do what they do very well; look no further than Deryl Carroll’s performance in the beach sketch.

Or take a gander at Nancy Dye’s take on Tyne Daly’s Lacey, brandishing Emmys instead of guns. Or George McGrath’s astonishing ability to turn a few facts about a member of the audience into a concert performance worthy of MTV. Or the canine soap opera enacted by Jim Doughan, Sherri Stoner and Jim Jackman.

Melanie Graham’s Yoko Ono bit isn’t terribly accurate, but then it doesn’t last long, either. The only piece that’s out of place is Kathy Griffin’s return as a voluble Inglewood (read: black) moviegoer, this time commenting on “Fatal Attraction” as she watches. This one would be funnier if the Groundlings weren’t an all-white group.

Performances are at 7307 Melrose Ave., Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 8 and 10 p.m. Tickets: $12.50-$15; (213) 934-9700.