One-Acts at Theatre 40; ‘Boys’ at La Mirada; ‘Eddie Presley’ at Waterfront; ‘Phoenix’ at Gorilla; ‘Denny’ at Friends and Artists

Theatre 40’s first One Act Festival has set a promising standard, at least with its series of three new one-acts (another series of previously produced plays completes the festival).

The premiering pieces are totally different in style and theme. What’s consistent is the discipline and precision of the productions.

The strongest of the new play trio is Sam Ingraffia’s “Chateau Rene,” about the flickering of the high life and the dawn of old age for an ex-boxer/semi-mobster and his loyal bodyguard. Thom Keane’s aging tough guy, playing Sinatra records in a shell of an apartment and raging at his deterioration, is a memorable character. His hulking and protective retainer is performed with visible measures of love and independence by Milt Kogan. Festival producer Stewart J. Zully sensitively directed.

The most entertaining of the trio is the sexual fantasy “A Delightful Dinner With Delores Duhamel,” by Meg Griffith. Here, the perfect gourmet housewife with the floral print dress and sensible shoes (a delightful turn by Carol King) lasciviously cavorts with her fantasy dream lover (the matinee-idol looking Webster Williams) under the nose of her inane, uncomprehending “Honey, I’m home” husband (Daamen Krall). Dennis Cornell helmed with panache.

The opening one-act, Steve Shilo-Felson’s “The Wedge,” is more ordinary, a rather drab drama about a blue-collar family (Gavin Glennon, Chris Michael Moore and Mary Gregory) struggling with change in their lives. Director Peter Frisch is unable to wring much fire out of the showdowns. But a huge wedge of festering cheese is a vivid metaphor.

At Beverly Hills High School, 241 Moreno Drive, Beverly Hills, Sundays through Wednesdays, through Jan. 24. Tickets: $10; (213) 466-1767.

‘The Boys Next Door’

This grab bag of a play, set in a halfway house for the mentally handicapped, is, by maddening turns, a social service message, an affecting drama, a sloppily sentimental drama, a genuinely funny play, and a play that exploits the retarded for laughs.

The tone varies so much that it is difficult to tell from Glenn Casale’s direction what playwright Tom Griffin really had in mind. The production at La Mirada Civic Theatre features, however, a terrific performance by vulnerable, rotund Robert Machray, who is the airy personification of the dancing hippos in “Fantasia”--dim-headed sweetness itself, with an underlayer of Fatty Arbuckle by way of a-light-in-the-loafer Jackie Gleason (Machray played the same role last year at the Pasadena Playhouse).

And there is a character played by Ron Campbell, all jangly nerves and jerky-looking high cuffs, spinning about like a marionette. Campbell is given such rein that he comes off as a nerdy exaggeration of the worried youth he played in the recent “Death of a Salesman” at the L.A. Theatre Center. Trouble is he’s a gifted clown here, instead of a disturbed character you empathize with.

Tony Orlando, as the social worker who tends the flock, has the toughest role because it’s so straight, but he carries it off with a nice, easy touch. The show’s genuine high point--a lovely dance between the bulky, hugging Machray and the physically twisted Sabina Weber--brings down the first act, and the house. In truth, the show ends here. Most of the long second act is anticlimactic and expendable.

At 14900 La Mirada Blvd., La Mirada, Tuesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7:30 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday matinees, 2:30 p.m.; through Jan. 28. Tickets: $18-$22; (213) 994-9801. ‘Eddie Presley’

You’ve heard of a lounge lizard. Meet Eddie Presley (that’s his real name), in his studded white jump suit in Doc’s Back Room. Funny thing is that puffy Eddie, an Elvis impersonator and part-time security guard, may be at the end of the line--he’s working a motel--but he isn’t a bad Elvis. He’s got those arm movements down and for a few chords he even sounds like Elvis.

Written and performed by Duane Whitaker at the Waterfront Stage, “Eddie Presley . . . A Tribute to the King” is a weird evening. First of all, to the credit of director Charles Duncombe Jr., the experience feels like a self-conscious and tacky club act.

The show opens with a sleazy comic played so convincingly by the egregious Bill Moynihan that the verisimilitude, coupled with Kevin Graves’ jumpy spotlight, is complete.

Then something forlorn happens. The satire and laughs stop. The Elvis music stops, and we get about 45 minutes of Eddie Presley retracing life’s setbacks with the kind of sloppy, self-confessional sentiments that show-biz people are prone to. The show takes a dive. Old Eddie isn’t that interesting. Play your songs, Eddie--we came to see Elvis.

At 250 Santa Monica Pier, Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m., through Jan. 20. Tickets: $6.25-$10. (213) 393-6672.

‘Incident of the Phoenix’

The curiosity of this overwrought play set in a Phoenix trailer park is that, despite its screechiness and murkiness, a contemporary and baked human landscape looms from the stage.

Produced by a troupe calling itself Gorilla Theater (composed largely of students and alumni of CalArts), “An Incident of the Phoenix” at the Friends and Artists Theatre is too busy with its assorted theatrical devices to ever settle down and make a lean statement. And lean is what the material appears to be, although the intentions are loftier.

Playwright Jonathan Hogan’s immolation scene seems arbitrary and fails to justify the mythic title. But for all of that, the adolescent floundering and the homosexual subtexts catch on desert parchment a new kind of land: America as Trailer Court.

Vivid characters who age with dramatic change are created by Braden Michaels, Susan Doupe and Abby Apple, under Tony Doupe’s direction.

At 1761 N. Vermont Ave., Saturdays and Sundays, 8 p.m., through Jan. 28. Tickets: $10. (818) 240-7489.

‘1990 Wonder of Denny’

There are five Moynahans--Kay, Dave, Danny, Kevin and the entitled Denny--involved in this show at the Friends and Artists. Denny is the solo actor who gives us his mind, magic and mummery.

Most of the show is stupefying. The theater program is wrapped in a Wonder Bread bag, and the evening goes downhill from there.

Except for this one exception: the live, six-member band visible at the back of the stage is a scintillating group, full of drive and good arrangements, with a mean trumpet and sax. But up front the young red-haired Wonder of Denny, reminiscing about his grandfather and doing numbers called “Sinbad the Sailor,” “Def Leprechaun” and “Oh Jeez! 1990,” defies description.

The show is not even goofy. It’s home theater--as unconnected and pointless as home movies.

At 1761 N. Vermont Ave., closes tonight. Tickets: $10. (213) 664-0689.