‘Guys and Dolls’ at Colony Studio; ‘Close Ties’ at Theatre 40; ‘Play On!’ at Worklight Space

The line on “Guys and Dolls” at the Colony Studio Theater is even money: The voices are mostly terrific and director-choreographer Todd Nielsen’s show clips along like a racer, but Frank Loesser’s songs are mangled by Natasha (Boots) Walker’s orchestra.

Loesser’s spunky music can never be permanently damaged, of course, but Walker’s tinny synthesizers seriously mar what can be one of Broadway’s most irresistible entertainments. Ten other instruments do augment the double keyboards but, like the singing, they are sometimes drowned out in a synthesized wash. Once again, we’re reminded that when it comes to playing a full-bodied score, there’s no substitute for a full-bodied orchestra. (Marjorie Poe did the musical coordination and adaptation.)

The Dolls get their say just as much as the crap-shooting guys in Abe Burrows and Jo Swerling’s book based on Damon Runyon’s New York tales, and Eileen T’Kaye’s Adelaide commands attention like no one else. She’s like a cheap spritzer over ice that you can’t have enough of, topped with a comic voice someone should preserve on record. Hugh Maguire’s Nathan Detroit is definitely second fiddle to T’Kaye.

It’s the reverse with Robert Stoeckle’s Sky Masterson and Linda Stone’s Sarah. He is consummately suave, with real vocal power, while Stone wasn’t negotiating the musical challenges at last Saturday’s performance. When Sarah breaks out of her Holy Roller shell on a fling to Havana with Sky, Stone nicely suggests a cat let out of the cage. The support, especially Vince Acosta’s Nicely-Nicely, Nick DeGruccio’s Benny and Stuart Lancaster’s Big Jule are thoroughly Runyonesque.

Kenton D. Jones’ set is almost Runyonesque, though, again, the budgetary strain shows. It doesn’t show at all with Christine Lomaka’s lights and Jill Sharaf’s costumes, which send you to pinstripe heaven.

At 1944 Riverside Drive, Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m.; Sept. 3 and 17 only, 3 p.m. Ends Sept. 21. Tickets: $12-$17; (213) 665-3011.

‘Close Ties’

“What do we do with Mama?” Elizabeth Diggs, a very sensitive and traditional dramatist, makes a family face that question in her play “Close Ties” at Theatre 40.

As in life, events force an answer on well-intended people who would rather put it off for a while longer. But “Close Ties” is about a family, and Diggs makes it clear that Mama (Jeanne Bates) is only one of their problems.

Too clear, in fact. This was Diggs’ first play (in 1981), and you can feel the fledgling playwright wanting to make everything as dramatically neat and orderly as the Frye family’s Berkshire summer house. And beneath the WASP-ish tidiness, it’s all too obvious that emotional sores are unhealed.

Of Bess’ three daughters and one son, Evelyn (Valarie Karasek) is the sorest. She lashes out at her mother’s excessive caring and at her sibling Anna’s (Liz Georges) friendliness with her--Evelyn’s--boyfriend Ira (Thomas Tofel). Diggs tries to draw parallels between Evelyn and Mama’s own quiet struggle with herself (she too pounces on everyone). But these people are too set in place for any interesting narrative turns to happen. Families can have more surprises than this.

Ira, the outsider, provides the caring ear Mama needs and the love Evelyn is afraid of. He also provides Diggs and director Charles Arthur’s prim and smooth production with the most wrenching moments: Karasek and Tofel make you feel that Ira is really going to save Evelyn’s life, if Evelyn will let him.

This all tends to diminish Mama’s drama, but Bates manages to suggest a bright mind fighting senility. Pamela Ann Wiley makes Bess a woman at a loss as to how she can please everyone.

At 241 Moreno Drive, Beverly Hills High School, Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 and 8 p.m. Ends Sept. 24. Tickets: $12-$15; (213) 466-6066.

‘Play On!’

Director Mark Leach’s ensemble, at the Worklight Performing Space, simply cannot make Rick Abbot’s strained “Play On!” play at all. As a severely weak variation on the tradition of backstage comedies that reached its zenith with Michael Frayn’s “Noises Off,” Abbot’s three-acter is less an escalating series of thespian mishaps than a limply constructed set of observations on how many ways theater people can find to snipe away at each other.

Abbot’s setting is a British community theater, where a talentless company led by director Gerry Dunbar (Jackie Little) is vainly trying to stage a hack playwright’s murder mystery. Leach chose, despite character names like Augie Manville, Phyllis Montague and Violet Imbry, to make his people Americans. That way, one supposes, we’ll laugh at their poor British accents--a curious choice, since this is the one thing Abbot’s characters are able to do correctly. The only way to lampoon very bad theater is by being very good at lampooning it. Anything less and you wonder who the joke is on.

The line between the weak actor and the weak character-as-actor begins to seriously blur, as does our desire to share the panic of Gerry’s company. Act III’s opening night horrors have their moments, but the chance to play it broadly--the only lively way to play “Play On!”--is lost.

At 17714 Saticoy Ave., Reseda, on Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7:30 p.m., until Aug. 27. Tickets: $15; (818) 996-8688.