Mamet’s ‘Shawl’ Feels Like an Early Work at the Waterfront

David Mamet has, jokingly perhaps, referred to his 1985 play, “The Shawl,” as “my ‘Twilight Zone’ episode.” But except for a jarring moment during Tuesday’s performance when the building of the Waterfront Stage shook with perfect dramatic timing from a small earthquake, the play never realizes its ambitions for eeriness.

This is the Los Angeles premiere, but “The Shawl” is so slight that it feels and sounds like a very early Mamet work, earlier even than his other spooky piece, “The Water Engine.”

Like Miss A., a desperate woman who comes to John, a low-life psychic, for help with her dead mother’s will, we must accept this seer for the man he is. Director Duane Whitaker severely undercuts this, though, with some faulty casting. Shelly Desai as John voraciously swallows precious lines where he should be pulling us into his orbit, so that the plot curves carry a curiously empty feeling.

We also can’t accept Strawn Bovee’s skeptical-looking Miss A. stomaching John’s visions of her mother very long (she even out-tricks him, then doesn’t leave). There’s no emotional union between Desai and Bovee, and no link of any sort between Desai and Robert Patrick as Charles, John’s lucre-sniffing lover. Without these, the implication of danger in the play’s mood--not abetted by the severely reined-in dialogue--floats like a cloud above these people without entering their lives.

At 250 Santa Monica Pier, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 8 p.m., until June 6. $12.50; (213) 393-6672.

‘To Forgive, Divine’ a Farce at Colony

The Colony Studio Theatre is a place that knows what its audience wants: familiar, accessible plays with beginnings, middles and ends, and productions in which all the actors remember their lines. That is why it has as healthy a subscriber base as any smaller theater around. It is also why the subscribers loved Jack Neary’s “To Forgive, Divine” at the performance seen.

They took to Jonathan Palmer’s Father Jerry Dolan, and how he gets the hots for a married woman (Cara Roe’s Katie) whom he’s admired from afar since they were in high school together. They were charmed by Kathryn Fuller’s Milly, the crusty unofficial chief around this New England Catholic church. Isn’t it cute how Milly has to corral in her teen helper, Margaret (Debra J. Rogers), then chide Jerry for dancing with Katie in the middle of the sacristy?

Maybe, especially if you like the idea of a Pat O’Brien movie retooled for the ‘90s, but should a faithful audience be subjected to the bad farce Neary’s play becomes? The lengths taken to create a high-tension situation involving Jerry, Katie and Katie’s burly husband (David Drummond) and a large closet is simply a case of a playwright imposing his need for comedy on characters against their wills. For farce, that is fatal.

But everyone, as always, remembers their lines; some, like Fuller, etch out some memorable moments. Susan Gratch’s set is an authentic sacristy and Michael David Wadler’s direction is professional. There’s more to a show, though, than quality.

At 1944 Riverside Drive, on Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 7 p.m., some Sunday matinees, until June 17. $15-$17; (213) 655-3011.

‘Ruby Ruby Sam Sam’ on the Cast’s Menu

Director Lee Garlington has become a specialist in plays about women who work in eateries. But where her 1987 production of “Waiting” was a sweet and scintillating comedy with refreshing views of how women deal with work in public, her current staging of Stan Edelman’s “Ruby Ruby Sam Sam,” at the Cast Theatre, is a contradictory muddle.

A lot of it is Edelman’s doing. Clearly, we’re meant to wonder why Ruby (Catlin Adams), owner of a Southern diner, allows Sam (Van Quattro), a late-night customer, to hang around the estabishment after closing time. There’s something about Sam, a struggling playwright, that attracts her, and something about the danger of the situation that contains an aphrodisiac quality.

But Edelman never pins this something down, nor does he affix it to the character’s needs. If “Ruby Ruby” was about the mystery of human contact--which it isn’t--a certain vagueness would be apt. All we can do is wonder about Ruby’s judgment, since Quattro plays Sam as a borderline nut case. Adams puts her heart into a role that’s ultimately two irreconcilable women in one. She keeps a good diner though, judging by Andy Daley’s detail-rich set.

At 800 N. El Centro Ave., Mondays and Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 7 p.m., until June 11. $10; (213) 462-0265.

‘Rizzo,’ Italian-American Comedy, at the Whitefire

Jimmy Rizzo is not asleep in Frank Adamo’s Italian-American comedy at the Whitefire Theatre, “Waking Jimmy Rizzo.” Jimmy kicked the bucket during intercourse with a woman other than his wife. Now, his pals down at the bar are figuring out how to send him off. His family is figuring out if Jimmy is worth the trouble.

Adamo breaks up his play into scene pieces--not always to the play’s benefit, but an efficient way of getting to know the people in this 14-character work.

Much time is spent on Edna, Jimmy’s forlorn wife (the perfectly cast Rhoda Gemignani) convincing her bitter son Tom (Nick Vallelonga, who does an excellent slow boil) to go to the wake. This is balanced off with the comic spats, in the funeral parlor no less, of Laura and Bert (Carol Ann Susi and Adamo, who alternates with Anthony John Denison, are an Italian Nichols and May team). Other couples spat too, and we can see Jimmy in all these men, short on feelings and long on mouth.

A final set-piece in the parlor, when everyone comes together in the play for the first time (including Mary Tower’s funny Judy, the woman Jimmy slept and died with) goes on too long under Frank Megna’s direction, and reminds you that too much of “Waking Jimmy Rizzo” is just another comedy about how rotten most men are, without having anything new to say on the subject.

At 13500 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks, on Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 7 p.m., until May 27. $12 - $15; (213) 466-1767.