Hampton’s Early Treatise on the Battles of Love

Christopher Hampton is several playwrights in one. He writes of complex political conundrums (“Savages,” “The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H.”). He adapts, with finesse, foreign classics (“Tales From the Vienna Woods,” “The Wild Duck”).

And he explores how people use each other in a sexual food chain (“Les Liaisons Dangereuses,” another adaptation). The progenitor of the sly “Liaisons” is Hampton’s 1976 play about contemporary young Londoners, “Treats,” at the Rose Theatre.

The prey is Ann, played with wavering accent but Glenda Jackson-like fortitude by Lucy Boryer. She has discarded her rapacious boyfriend, Dave (Michael Wallenstein), for a rather limp alternative named Patrick (Donald Robinson Gordon). But only the strong survive in “Treats.” Dave, never one to accept a simple “no,” verbally bullies Patrick into submission.

The tables are turned, with perfect Hampton symmetry, and Patrick becomes the outsider trying to get back in. This is delicious sexual battling, even if the young Hampton stacked the deck too neatly in Dave’s favor. Patrick never has a chance (Gordon lays his neuroses bare with delirious precision), though Wallenstein’s Dave isn’t quite the gobbling big fish he should be. Ferdinand Lewis’ production, while only just competent, serves up “Treats” with all the cynical trimmings intact.

At 318 Lincoln Blvd., Venice, on Thursdays through Sundays, 8 p.m., until Sept. 29. $12; (213) 288-6834.

‘Devil’s Advocate’ at Celebration

Talk about cynical. Giancarlo Stampalia’s “Devil’s Advocate,” at the Celebration Theatre, takes Hollywood at face value--as a town where the only ones who matter are the ones who survive. The rest might as well be at the bottom of the ocean.

That is where super-agent and lawyer Joseph Winterowd (Christopher Nixon) has deposited one of his victims, but he is more accustomed to fashioning associates’ lives than he is to killing them. His big plans for future star Gregory Dane (Kevin Kildow) include major billing and keeping Dane’s gay life style in the closet. Winterowd’s trusty accomplice (Carolyn Kimball) provides her less-than-zero daughter (Catherine Davis Cox) as Dane’s wife. But Winterowd’s ex, Katherine (Sarah Lilly) is about to screw up the works.

Stampalia’s formula is film noir , just as the formula for his previous “Gentleman’s Gentleman” was Wildean comedy. He’s a good enough writer not to need any form but his own, yet he revels in noir here, as if James M. Cain were re-writing John Webster.

He directs that way, too: Few scenes are longer than a minute, but, thanks to a disciplined pacing with sharp blackouts, they collectively build up a sense of inescapable evil. Nixon has the surest grasp of this, while Kildow is an ideal innocent. The women uneasily sway between campy and serious.

At 426 N. Hoover St., on Sept. 25, Oct. 2-3, 9-10. $5; (213) 666-8669.

‘Sunday Show’ With The Groundlings

Like a ballclub with a major league outfit and a farm system to support it, The Groundlings have a first team that plays prime time and a second unit on Sundays. The idea is to groom the Sunday group before they move up the ladder.

But the current “Sunday Show” has it all over the Friday-Saturday “Full Frontal Groundlings.” Even with the usual caveat emptor --that the line-up of skits and improvs changes from week to week--director Cathy Shambley’s current bunch of Groundlings is one of the best in some time.

For one thing, the evening relies on written, well-honed scenes, leaving the brief improvs to the end. Things start off strong with “New Kids on the Eastern Bloc” and stay strong. TV, as usual, is a big source: “Wide World of Sports” anchors host a party as if they’re still on the air; a product to promote chest hair growth is pitched; a “Baywatch” lampoon “rescues” a female audience member.

The show is also aware that there’s life beyond TV: out-of work lawyers, like undocumented workers, flag down clients on the street; stylish luncheoners contend with enormous slices of watermelon; male and female celibates find true love. This is a bright 14-member ensemble, but the guiding light is the writing, led by Carolyn Omine, Michael Caldwell, Mike Hitchcock, Jim Wise and Vic Wilson.

At 7307 Melrose Ave., on Sundays, 7:30 p.m., indefinitely. $11; (213) 934-9700.

‘Double Double’ at Tiffany Theatre

L.A. has its trademark TV-oriented theater, New York has its trademark overproduced, empty extravaganzas, and London’s West End has its trademark actor-oriented genre pieces. “Sleuth” is an example, and “Double Double,” by Eric Elice and actor Roger Rees, is “Sleuth’s” banal stepchild.

The only reason a show like this exists is to make money, but the unevenness of Claudia A. Weitsman’s Tiffany Theatre production makes you wonder if that can happen. The heart of the problem is Nicole Orth-Pallavicini as a just-widowed woman who claims to a picked-up stranger (Rudolph Willrich) that she needs him to stand in for her dead husband so she can collect on his trust fund.

What’s the problem? Orth-Pallavicini can’t make her widow sound the least bit sincere, undercutting the plot’s credibility at every turn. Several turns later, even the plot goes blotto as Elice and Rees desperately try to wrap things up. David Scaglione’s set shakes a lot from the action, but Willrich stands his ground as a man of surprising cleverness.

At 8532 Sunset Blvd., on Thursdays through Sundays, 8 p.m., until Oct. 7. $20; (213) 289-2999.

7 Characters an Hour in ‘Crying Out Loud’

Is an hour enough time for one actor to dig inside seven distinct characters? Madeleine Comora’s and Mariangela Pino’s “For Crying Out Loud” suggests not; but as actress Pino announced before the performance, she and Comora are asking for audience comments.

So it’s still in progress, like these women. Except for Margaret, an Englishwoman obsessed with death and disaster, and Alyce, a homeless Vietnam War veteran, they’re profiles in courage--or at least a courageous exterior.

Pino is best at allowing the tough mask to fall away to show the underlying loneliness or hurt. She can cover a range of dialects, though the sheer number of them threatens to turn the show into a showcase. Comora and Pino, with director Aled Davies, need to decide which women to flesh out more, and which to leave aside for another play.

At 1455 N. Gordon, on Sept. 23, 10:30 p.m.; Sept. 24 and 30, 8 p.m.; Mondays, 8:30 p.m. (starting Oct. 1), indefinitely. $10; (213) 957-1335.