‘Celia’s World’ at Actors Alley; ‘Two for the Seesaw’ at Theatre 40 ‘Inside Out’ at the Skylight; ‘Merry Devil’ at Globe Playhouse;

How would you react if a recently deceased sibling came back to life and materialized in your living room? After some modest discomfort, Jennifer’s reaction to a ghost is, “How are you?”

“I’m dead,” responds her sister Celia. “How are you?”

Talk about meeting cute! But that’s the premise of “Celia’s World” at Actors Alley.

How to kill time with your unexpected visitor? Ask about the immortality of the soul and what the furniture looks like on the other side. Call ghostbusters.

These twins perform crucial scenes from their shared past--scenes suspiciously resembling acting class exorcisms. By the end, the living Jennifer lives happily ever after and the suicidal Celia “goes beyond the pain” into “the white light.”

Fortunately, playwright Jeffrey Levy’s world premiere plays better than its concept sounds. His disdain for Stephen King gothics is admirable. This pair has no relation to Brian DePalma’s “Sisters” or to any of the horrific twins haunting our spectral B-movie screens.

However, Levy’s holiday reunion tone to “Celia’s World” trivializes an otherwise poignant examination of sibling love and rivalry, guilt and responsibility, death and mourning. By removing the psychic from the psychological, he reduces his sisters’ duel to psychodrama. Will Jennifer have an abortion? Will Celia persuade her that life is precious? Tune in next seance.

But a compelling emotional honesty underscores the flashback scenes. Andrea Crissman is initially awkward and self-conscious as the surviving sister; once Kathryn Graf’s spectral Celia joins her on stage, their team work is compelling. Re-enacting childhood memories, their innocent behavior exhibits a deeply felt honesty.

J. David Moeller portrays their fatalistic father as a believable emotional coward. Brien Paul Fornesi is clumsy as a grieving adult, but in flashback he’s deliciously droll. Sarah Lilly is the mother, also back from the dead for a visit.

The uncredited set reflects the central flaw in Celia’s world: No sense of place, atmosphere or genre. Where are we? If you’re going to use the supernatural as a frame for art, be prepared for an unwilling suspension of disbelief when your characters act naturally. Yet beneath the routine surface there’s enough here to warrant a second coming. With revisions there could be life after death for Levy’s world.

At 4334 Van Nuys Blvd. in Sherman Oaks. Mondays through Wednesdays, 8 p.m., until Sept. 13. Free; (818) 986-2278.

‘Inside Out’

More Bard bashing occurs at the Skylight Theater, where Frank Fowler’s solo show “Inside Out” confuses Hamlet with Pee-wee Herman. Fowler portrays a New York actor tormented by callback fright. It seems that whenever opportunity knocks, a tiny squeak of a voice pops out to foul Fowler’s chances. This infantile voice, slightly reminiscent of Soupy Sales, inhabits a sock that Fowler puts on his left hand.

Therefore, Fowler roams his loft arguing with a sock. Tonight the demon sock doesn’t want the actor to attend an unlikely Hamlet callback. Joseph Papp is offering our melancholy sock the title role at the Public Theater, or is it the actor? “To sock or not to sock.”

Fowler relies on a variety of props to pad Hamlet’s soliloquy on suicide: chocolate milk, ice cream, a baby’s blanket, a baby bottle. “There’s the rub” inspires masturbation. When desperate, Fowler suckles a gigantic rubber nipple.

“Inside Out” may have been amusing to fellow actors in a workshop situation where it first dared to speak its name. As an acting-class exercise, it may relieve audition anxiety. But peer pressure should have kept this confession from going public.

At 1816 1/2 N. Vermont, Hollywood, Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m., through Sept. 16. Tickets: $11; (213) 851-1681.

‘Two For the Seesaw’

“Two for the Seesaw” marked William Gibson’s Broadway debut back in 1958. The surprise hit of that distant season, this two-character pendulum was kept swinging by veteran Henry Fonda and a newcomer named Anne Bancroft.

Today, plays rarely span three acts and people neither talk nor behave as they do in “Seesaw.”

So Theatre 40’s revival leans heavily on nostalgia. Between scenes, Frank Sinatra croons his oldies but goldies. During scenes, we listen as attorney Jerry Ryan (Chip Heller) boasts that he makes $15,000 a year while his potential mate, Gittel Mosca (Stephanie Satie), moans that she survives on $18 a month.

Director Neil Elliott never charges this duet with valid eroticism. The result is static and cloying. Heller is not credible as a separated husband haunted by his ex-wife. He recites his lines by rote with an irritating lack of pauses or Midwestern irony. Satie is shrill and pathetic as the victim of his self-absorption. She remains a puppet--rarely the Bohemian outsider who charmed audiences in the ‘50s. Together, they lack the chemistry crucial to overcoming Gibson’s dated dialogue.

At 241 Moreno Drive in Beverly Hills, Mondays through Wednesdays, 8 p.m., until Sept. 20. Free; (213) 466-1767.

‘Merry Devil’

The Globe Playhouse is advertising “The Merry Devil of Edmonton” as “Shakespeare’s lost comedie.” If the Bard wrote this poorly structured cartoon, he must have lost it on purpose. There’s a practical reason why its last public performance was in 1608.

Alas, there are numerous reasons why publicity starved scholars might argue that the “Merry Devil” is actual Shakespeare. The patchwork plot shamelessly “borrows” from “Romeo and Juliet,” “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “Hamlet” and “As You Like It.” The clumsy poetry steals metaphors from Shakespeare’s most famous lines--literally in the case of Hamlet’s “Get thee to a nunnery” speech. Here a lovesick heroine is banished by her abusive father to a Catholic cloister, then restored to her Romeo thanks to a Cambridge scholar with black-magic powers.

Even at minimal inspiration, Shakespeare never descended to self-plagiarism.

The Globe production’s effort is laudatory, the costumes attractive. Co-directors Greg Owens and R. Thad Taylor can mount a fluid colorful spectacle. The large cast is obviously committed to the project as evidenced by the excessive gesturing. And it’s courageous when television actors venture onto the stage, such as “Dallas” star Charlene Tilton, who portrays the unwilling nun here.

But other than the excellently trained Domenick Allen as a mischievous Dr. Faustus, the players resemble awe-struck tourists in Shakespeareland. We experience vertigo while actors precariously ride iambic pentameters.

At 1107 N. Kings Road in West Hollywood, Thursdays through Sundays, 8 p.m., until Oct. 21. Tickets: $12.50-$17.50; (213) 654-5623.