‘Palm Sunday Service’ at Richmond Shepard; ‘Pigeon Egghead’ at Lex; One-Acts at Shepard; ‘God’ at Attic; ‘Coward’ at West End Playhouse

“Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” never tried to be a pleasant situation comedy. Now we know that was partly due to its late co-creator, Daniel Gregory Browne. Browne’s play, “The Palm Sunday Service,” at the Richmond Shepard, makes you wonder if resigning from the human race isn’t such a bad idea.

Any play that does that to your mind has accomplished something. In retrospect, it can also become rather suffocating.

Browne’s approach is starkly distant, which is initially interesting. And with the kind of people that walk through the Carrolls’ Palm Springs house, your first instinct is to walk the other way. Sonya and Charlie Carroll (Karlene Bradley and Frank Birney) are unrelentingly bitchy and venomous, like Harold Robbins characters who wandered into a David Rabe play. George (James Higdon, who also directed) jokes that a pen name he used in his fading writing career was Harold Robbins. His companion, Dagny--also an adopted name--isn’t keen on the joke, or much else about this situation.

That is because she is here to give Charlie an evening of radical sadomasochism, with George along to make sure she gets the job done. Meanwhile, Sonya, in between giant gulps of booze, tries to hire George and Dagny to kill Charlie.

Sonya is as disgusting a lush as we ever want to meet on stage (Bradley lets it all out, almost too much so), but given that she has endured Charlie’s nightly desire to be the two-by-four for someone’s sexual carpentry, her contract offer isn’t so outrageous.

“The Palm Sunday Service” roams between levels of depravity, with no escape hatch in sight. You wish that most other plays and movies had half of its unmitigated gall and steeliness, but, ultimately, its fascination is on the freak show level. Browne subtitled his play, “a pathology report,” but he also wants us to finally glean some tragedy. Despite the unnervingly gutsy performances, his people are too far gone for us to care for them. Cheryl Slean’s Dagny does come across as a victim, even more so than the similar women in “Hurlyburly.”

At 6476 Santa Monica Blvd., on Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 7 p.m., through Aug. 20. Tickets: $13; (213) 466-1767.

‘Pigeon Egghead’

What if a not-so-sharp Native American scout was sent upriver to mingle with powerful white men and report back, and then find that his report wasn’t believed? And what if he began to ape the white man, while knowing that a holocaust was coming? The premise of Dan Zellner’s “Pigeon Egghead” is almost unbeatable. The play based on the premise is less so.

Zellner begins his tale with a broad farcical tone, which Brent Morris’ Rough Theatre ensemble at the Lex Theatre--doubling in Indian and white roles--has much fun with, especially when Pigeon (Stuart Bird) goes to the White House to meet Andy Jackson and his entourage (John Pinero and Jennie Webb as the First Lady). Pigeon, within a comic context reminiscent of “Little Big Man,” becomes the Everyman observer of the coming war against the Indians.

Then, the tone shifts, and the show loses its gas. None of his people, particularly his father the Chief (Pinero, again), believe the report from Pigeon, who’s left to fester in his own madness. “Pigeon Egghead” overflows with redolent images, in the mind (Jackson taking Pigeon up in a hot-air balloon) and on the stage (designer Linden Gilbert has inventively coordinated set pieces, curtains and projected slides). But the young cast can’t surmount the impossible, anti-climactic hurdles Zellner set up, and the inclusion of “chapter titles” in American Indian Sign Language (by Mary Wells) further protracts a potentially gripping yarn.

At 6760 Lexington Ave., on Thursdays through Sundays, 8 p.m. Tickets: $12; (213) 387-6969.

‘Women Climbing Fences’

Most one-act evenings are grab-bag affairs, and “Women Climbing Fences” at the Richmond Shepard Theatre is no exception. Most of them also save the best, most substantial piece for last. But, after Cindy Lou Johnson’s nicely crafted “The Person I Once Was” comes the pallid Vietnam reverie of Mimi Savage’s “1968” and the poorly conceived antics of Elise Caitlin’s “Oscar Night on the Hollywood Sign” (all directed by Larry Gilman). Putting hors d’oeuvres after the main course isn’t good programming.

Johnson’s lonely people need someone to talk to--particularly Blaise with Catherine (Willie Garson and Taunie Vrenon)--so her play has dialogue with a point. It is dialogue with various flavors running through it as well (Blaise’s is rich, Catherine’s is vanilla with a kick). Catherine’s older sister (Nancy Sheeber) dislikes Blaise’s charmingly up-front ways, which only push Catherine closer to him, setting up a quiet dance of emotions. Gilman’s cast plays it right, that is, pianissimo.

Theatricalizing the memories of daughters with Vietnam vet fathers must be done with the utmost care, or it ends up like “1968”: a maudlin, predictable family photo album on stage. “Oscar Night” tries to put us right there on the first “O” of the Hollywood Sign, where two failing actresses are ready to take the long leap (Lysa Hayland, effectively nerdy, and Bonnie Ebsen, whose hambone business gets brittle). Like an Oscar telecast, comedy this standard gives a bad case of deja vu.

At 6476 Santa Monica Blvd., on Thursdays through Sundays, 8 p.m. Tickets: $8-$12; (213) 466-1767.

‘God’

Good news from the outer fringes of the small theater circuit. There was a nearly full house for Woody Allen’s one-act, “God,” at the Attic Theatre late Friday night. This proves two things: Woody, in any form, still packs ‘em in, and people will go out of their way to see just about anything by a writer they trust.

Still, it’s hard to believe they came on word-of-mouth. The lines are pure Allen (Q: Have you ever made it with a fictional character before? A: The closest I came was an Italian) but Mitch Beer’s low-budget show isn’t one to stay up late for.

Allen’s script calls for “two good, broad burlesque clowns” to portray his Greek playwright and actor searching for an ending to their play, but Bill Birney and Stephen Weller are neither good, broad, burlesque nor clownish. The Fates--Bob and Wendy (Matthew Mark Campos and Marla Cotovsky)--definitely are, but otherwise the limited cast just can’t squeeze enough laughs out of this sloppy little existential entertainment.

At 6562 Santa Monica Blvd., on Fridays, 9:30 p.m., Saturdays, 9:30 and 11 p.m., through August 12. Tickets: $5; (213) 666-1427.

‘The Coward’

The title of writer-director John Bacos’ high-handed morality play, “The Coward,” at the West End Playhouse, sums up Bacos’ view of his central character. Interestingly, he’s a playwright (Jack Kearney), but once he has rejected love in the form of Cathy (Nikki Nanos), he’s doomed to guilt. His judge is his sister (Barbara McCloy), who seems to have it in for her brother.

The judgment of cowardice, in a third act in which Nanos startlingly transforms herself seems terribly harsh, especially as Cathy’s “love” isn’t convincing, and the sister’s hatred is fairly creepy. Thus, Kearney is saddled with playing a whipping boy and looks uncomfortable with the assignment.

At 7446 Van Nuys Blvd., on Wednesdays, 8 p.m., indefinitely. Tickets: $10; (818) 904-0444.