‘Mortal Risk’ Makes Drama of Serial Murder

Toddy Kemp is a killer--vicious, cold-blooded and unrepentant. He started small. He was barely past toddling when he dismembered his Aunt Hattie’s pet cat. He graduated to adult women, also leaving them in pieces.

Toddy has multiple personalities. He claims one of the others did the murders. Wait a minute. Something’s wrong with this picture. Could he be faking?

Scott Leva, who plays Toddy in Ron Mark’s “Mortal Risk” at the Court Theatre, rings as true as a tuning fork. So does Eileen T’Kaye’s Johanna, the criminal psychiatrist who sees through the cracks in Toddy’s facade.

Johanna’s journalist boyfriend Robert is hanging around only for Toddy’s inside story, and her teen-age son Dustin is messing around with jailbait. They’re captured unerringly by, respectively, William A. Wallace and Les Collins.

Sandra Kinder is heartbreaking as Hattie, Toddy’s first victim--he falsely accused her of child abuse and had her locked up--and David Tatosian is excellent as the sadistic cop who’s punishing Toddy before his trial. John Vomero’s direction finds impact in these intertwined stories and blends the performances into a frightening tapestry.

Scenes between Johanna and her mentor (a solid Russ Marin), could be excised without a blink. They’re a soapbox for Johanna to bemoan abuses against women. The play is strong enough without these undramatic moments.

“Mortal Risk” is also waiting for an ending to match its best scenes, but most of it is powerful theater, richly realized.

At 722 N. La Cienega Blvd., West Hollywood; Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m.; ends April 29. $17.50-$20; (213) 466-1767.

‘He-Man Ball’ a Black Version of ‘Two on Two’

Three guys meet on a public basketball court to while away a weekend afternoon, slam-dunking their egos into a basketful of insecurities.

It sounds a lot like Woody Harrelson’s “Two on Two,” at the Court Theatre last year, and that’s because Alonzo D. Lamont Jr.’s “That Serious He-Man Ball,” at Los Angeles Theatre Center’s Theatre 4, is basically the same play. But this time around the protagonists are twentysomething blacks on the sidelines of a society that still doesn’t allow them their chance of making the team.

Jello, played with high energy and honest vulnerability by Dominic Hoffman, wants to be a writer, but on his own terms. He works at a fast food stop. Tim Hutchinson is an intricate, subdued Twin, who’s trying to buck the system at Xerox, but just can’t seem to make it work, in spite of his Jewish wife’s pushing. A safe harbor at a black social service center doesn’t hide the emotional mess Sky is in, well defined in Roger Guenveur Smith’s volatile, exuberant performance.

Under Abdul Salaam El Razzac’s tightly wound direction, the games they play are funny and wrenchingly sad, but this fine production doesn’t disguise the fact that nothing much happens in this eventless play. Whether you’re in West Hollywood with Harrelson’s unhappy yuppies or on this court with Lamont’s angry blacks, shooting baskets and talking over your woes is still just shooting baskets and talking over your woes.

At 514 S. Spring St.; Thursdays through Sundays, 8 p.m.; ends May 20. $20; (213) 627-5599.

Loony Sisters Keep Funny ‘Skeletons’ in the Closet

These “Skeletons” aren’t in the closet. There is only one, dear old Dad, and he’s in the basement. One of these two air-headed sisters put him there. Mama couldn’t accept this antisocial behavior and went shopping--for good.

Five years later, in Lauren Berman’s oddly intriguing little play at Carpet Company Stage, Joe has built up a fine collection of plastic containers of air from around the world. She never leaves the house. Sam is a waitress, but she’s sure her special talent will someday be appreciated; she dies beautifully, by sword, dagger or poison. Ask her, she’ll do it for you.

Loony? No more than the inhabitants of Beth Henley’s early plays. Berman’s writing is so Henleyesque, we long for her to find her own voice. Her offbeat sense of humor deserves it.

Dan Cohen’s direction understands the kinky sincerity of the characters. Playwright Berman as Joe, and Lisa Stewart as Sam, are completely in tune with the play’s comic seriousness. Hunt Burdick, as a gas jockey from across the street who wants to take Joe away from it all, is perfect.

One day Berman will flesh out the comic skeleton in her closet.

At 5262 W. Pico Blvd.; Fridays through Sundays, 8 p.m.; ends April 29. $12; (213) 466-1767.

Buying Into Insecurity in ‘Performance Anxiety’

Vernon Takeshita isn’t talking about acting in his farce “Performance Anxiety” at East West Players. He’s talking about David’s mental blocks in bed. David has heard derogatory sexual myths about Asian men and is beginning to believe them.

He’s buying into insecurity more than he realizes. His most successful conquest disguises herself to help him relive the magic. She’s also married to David’s gay sex therapist, who’s more interested in David than David’s problems with women, and prescribes living in drag to soothe David’s Angst.

Takeshita has written the play in true farce form, including mad dashes between rooms in a sleazy hotel, replete with changing of wigs and mistaken identities.

Under Alberto Isaacs’ direction, a lot of it is not as funny as it could be if director and cast didn’t think they were being funny.

Timothy Dang as David has the lightness right but mugs too much. Sab Shimono has moments as the gay therapist, as does Ren Hanami as his wife and David’s lover, but all three need a heavy dose of serious to make the audience laugh with them instead of at them.

Steven La Ponsie has created some clever cutout set pieces to brighten the stage, but Lydia Tanji’s costumes unfortunately are all over the place, from modern dress to Roman togas, to the 1890s can-can outfit David wears in drag.

At 4424 Santa Monica Blvd.; Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m.; ends May 13. $12-$15; (213) 660-0366.

‘Hello, I Must Be Going’: An Unwittingly Apt Title

Robert Sugarman’s “Hello, I Must Be Going” vaguely touches on the subject of alcoholism, but the playwright doesn’t get any closer to the problem than Mary Chase did in “Harvey.” It’s near-beer.

What tension there is in the disjointed writing comes from the misguided attempt of son Mort, himself an alcoholic, to throw a birthday party for his idealistic ex-alcoholic father Larry.

Under Tony Rizzoli’s surface direction, there’s a lot of overacting, particularly by Art Kempf as the father, but Martin Schnitzer and Joan Benedict try their best to give life to Mort’s money-grubbing stepfather and self-righteous prig of a mother, and Eugene Pack makes an ingratiating Mort.

The best performance is Christy Botkin’s as Mort’s new girlfriend, who wisely decides the evening is “like a foreign film; you read all the titles, but something’s missing.” She finally gets fed up and leaves. Hooray for her.

At 4334 Van Nuys Blvd., Sherman Oaks; Mondays through Wednesdays, 8 p.m.; ends April 25. Free; (818) 986-2278.