STAGE REVIEW : A Final Martini at the ‘Rainbow’

Are contemporary American playwrights intimidated by mythology? While such film makers as George Lucas and Steven Spielberg gleefully exploit Joseph Campbell’s Territory of Myth, our theater artists often apologize for guiding an audience near the same archetypes. It’s as if the stage, once a sanctuary for spiritual metaphors, now fears its own shadow.

Case in point: “Early One Evening at the Rainbow Bar and Grille” at the Victory Theater.

Bruce Graham’s West Coast premiere dares to address several weighty themes. Subjects like the end of the world, Adam and Eve, God, morality and suicide are enlisted in the service of true love and even truer comedy. Evidently the final holocaust will come equipped with a laugh track.

It seems that an unspecified apocalypse is wiping out mankind. Some people blame the Russians, others the Chinese, while those in the know claim it’s the Arabs. Whoever or whatever triggered this plague or fallout, one thing is certain: The end is coming.

Fortunately for the folks in the Rainbow Bar and Grille, the mass extermination began somewhere in the Orient. While folks in the Rockies are dropping like flies, the neighborhood regulars can still belly up to the bar and knock back a few. “Out West everyone is dead,” we learn, “but so far so good. So let’s party!”

Bartender Shep (Dick Christie) may be contemplating suicide, but why? Is it because the only show left on television is “I Love Lucy” reruns? Or because he’s just received his first book advance--and the check won’t mean diddly squat if the world ends?

But why kill yourself when you can kill your loved ones? Willie (Robert Schuch) shoots his wife and is stalking the dog that urinated on his tires. Roy (Donovan Scott) was sick to death of working on cars, but now he can watch porn movies at the firehouse and break into the K mart. Good-time Rainbow cocktail waitress Shirley (Tommie Minard) is determined to achieve her repressed dreams: Sex with Shep.

And Shep? “Cheers,” anyone?

Why playwright Graham decided to balance a sitcom setting with the Apocalypse is anyone’s guess. Of course, a death notice might trigger the inane antics of his protagonists. “What do you say to a guy who just shot his wife?” Without the impending end of the world, that joke would be improbable.

But there’s salvation in this bar and it enters just before the second act ends. Joe (David Ruprecht) arrives when all seems lost. He saves the play but not the day. A kind of droll Rod Serling figure intruding to explain the impenetrable situation, Joe gently twists the zaniness into a “twilight zone” genesis.

Does this make “Rainbow Bar and Grille” a special event? No. What it does is adorn familiar situations and values with a VIP mythology. If God favors a martini, our limitations seem blessed. The play’s far-out radical portents harbor very conventional boy-meets-girl, love-makes-the-world-go-round issues.

The result? The portentous becomes pretentious. Jokes rule.

Do we care? No. Do we laugh? Yes, in part because of the exceptional cast. Despite the absurdist events, Dick Christie maintains a deliciously deadpan persona and David Ruprecht is delicious as the Godot we’ve been waiting for. Perfect timing and perfect inflection allow Ruprecht’s Joe to transform the Rainbow Bar and Grille into a new Eden.

Director Bill Cakmis unashamedly plays the text for laughs. Pauses are for punch lines, not profundities. Forget myth; remember ratings.

As mankind gets wiped out, a hysterical Schuch and a hilarious Scott lure us happily down. And once on the bottom, a devilishly over-the-top Tommie Minard takes care of the rest.

Marla Pennington as a feminist gym teacher is too strident, however. If fate has selected her character as the next Eve the new age won’t be an improvement over ours.

The production design is superb, thanks to Tori Nourafchan’s precise bar decor and Buddy Tobie’s suggestive lights.

With all this talent and energy on its side, we still exit “Rainbow Bar and Grille” wishing its happy hour hadn’t gone on so long. Perhaps a few complex philosophical questions might have let us exit laughing. Shep says it best: “God, I expected so much more. It’s just like any other day. Where are the special effects?”

You want a heavy thought? “What if he really is God? Can we leave him in the men’s room?”

That’s the way contemporary playwrights end the world. Not with a bang but a tag line.

At 3326 W. Victory Blvd. in Burbank, Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Runs indefinitely. Tickets: $15; (818) 843-9253.