‘Dancing in the End Zone’ Fumbles Its Chances

Most of football’s sins are made up for by a great two-minute drill in the fourth quarter. You keep hoping that an equivalent theatrical drill will occur in Bill C. Davis’ “Dancing in the End Zone,” at the Melrose Theatre. As it stands, the play lays out its conflicts like so many game charts, but the element of surprise is lost somewhere on the sidelines.

Director Peter Sagal and a smartly chosen cast eke out just about every drop of drama in Davis’ schematic story of a star college quarterback’s coming-to-conscience, but there’s no eluding a stifling air of predictability. An exception: The star’s mom (Lois Nettleton) turns out to be a keen observer of human behavior rather than the hysterical control-freak we assumed. More of this, and Davis would have a real play.

James (Scott Allyn) realizes that he’s always hated football, but it takes his new tutor (Kathe Mazur) to bring it out. As he draws closer to her, he drifts away from his coach (Alan Feinstein), who seems to be pushing his players past good physical sense. Mom wants James to keep playing, because it makes him tough.

A lot of dime-store psychologizing is tossed out, and intimations of moral awareness are heard, but James remains strangely neutralized, despite Allyn’s best efforts. Mazur is good at keeping her feelings tucked in, while Feinstein and Nettleton bring out a few emotional scars. Ken Booth’s lights and Alexandra Rubinstein’s compact, expressive set suggest a depth the play never realizes.

At 733 N. Seward St., on Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 2 and 7 p.m., until Nov. 11. $20; (213) 466-1767.

Quirky ‘Dec. 7, 1941’ at Inner City Center

If you go into Jon Shirota’s “Maui, December 7, 1941,” at Inner City Cultural Center, with the wrong attitude, you’ll get a strong whiff of the kind of nonsense that was Steven Spielberg’s senselessly crazed “1941.” That is because both Spielberg’s movie and Shirota’s play imagine what might have happened if Japanese soldiers had actually made it to American soil at World War II’s outset.

Shirota is out for different ends, though, with different means. His ends are to show the inherent absurdity in lives torn by cultural (in this case, Okinawan Japanese) and national loyalties. His means are variations on classic farce.

Kama (Dana Lee) wants his strong-willed daughter (Mimosa) to marry the buffoonish Kenyei (Doug Yasuda) and re-establish Okinawa family ties. His best-laid plans are blown apart by the Pearl Harbor invasion, and a stray, fanatic Japanese lieutenant (Ping Wu), who seduces Kenyei into his plot to begin the Maui War.

Shirota, who adapted this from part of his novel “Lucky Come Hawaii,” allows some of his farce machinery to show, as when Bob, a family friend and MP (Patrick Cameron), becomes nothing but a crude plot device. But, with Mako’s lighthearted direction and a taste for quirkiness--letting many funny and varied music passages sneak into the action--”Maui” unfolds with unique charm and unabashed innocence.

At 1308 S. New Hampshire, on Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 2 p.m., until Nov. 11. $18; (213) 387-1161.

Profusion of Skits in ‘Tofu on the Rampage’

Cold Tofu--the comedy group, not the food--isn’t cold at all. Staying compact and reasonably intact, the Tofu Eight have developed from mere skit performers into theatrical comedians.

This doesn’t mean that their show, “Tofu on the Rampage,” at the Los Angeles Theatre Center, is consistently hot stuff. There are many skits (23), some, of course, glaringly better than others. But those skits often playfully echo off each other, showing the guiding hand of director Arthur Sellers.

There are reappearing characters (Robert Covarrubias’ cop trying to handle Joey Miyashima and Amy Hill as homeless mates, or Covarrubias’ priest doubling as sex teacher). Some reappear past their welcome, while others--tobacco ad men hatching a campaign, Imelda Marcos bringing her dead husband to the bank--are almost too brief.

So are the political sentiments (against guns and racism). This group of Asian, Latino, black and Anglo comics might do well to assert their messages along with their jokes.

At 514 S. Spring St., on Fridays through Sundays, 8 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m., until Oct. 28. $15-$18; (213) 627-5599.

Buravsky’s ‘Body Shop’ Needs Overhauling

The major glasnost -era Soviet plays that have made it here for engagements--Vladimir Gubaryev’s “Sarcophagus” and Alexander Galin’s “Stars in the Morning Sky,” for instance--fell far short of expectations. Add, alas, another to the list: Alexander Buravsky’s “The Body Shop,” in its English-language premiere at California Repertory Company.

Buravsky is in demand, with works coming soon to South Coast Repertory and the Mark Taper Forum. You can only hope that they won’t need the major repairs “The Body Shop” requires.

It’s a little play about little people--a fence for stolen cars (Ken Rugg), his lover (Jan Gist), his daughter (Susan K. Berkompas), a hood (John Ross Clark) and a taxi driver (Craig Rovere). Appropriately, Buravsky and co-director Eugene Kamenkovitch (also fresh from Moscow) seem to be going for a chamber comedy.

But the chamber is opened in Act II, and a plot-crazed hurricane storms in. Everything from Stalin to peace demonstrations to film festivals is brought up, and by the end, we understand these people less than we did before. Don’t blame Michael Henry Heim’s translation or the cast; Buravsky simply loses control of his comedy’s potential.

At 1250 Bellflower Blvd., Cal State Long Beach, tonight and Saturday, 8 p.m., continuing in repertory schedule until Dec. 8. $10-$14; (213) 985-5526.

‘Homeless’ a Street Opera of Desperation

Not even the usually sound Suspension of Disbelief can stand the stress of “Homeless, a Street Opera,” at Theatre/Theater. Director Panos Christi too convincingly sets a scene of down-and-out desperation and sickness, so that when his cast bursts into song, it explodes any credibility or connection.

Michael Kearns (words) and Darien Martus (music) seem to have borrowed equally from “Godspell’s” inspirationals, Brecht/Weill’s odes to the poor and Puccini’s melodramatic sentiments. Nothing original comes from the mix, and many of the singers aren’t up to Martus’ rising and dipping musical lines and energetic pulse. Which is the problem: How could homeless people dying of AIDS or near-starving have the energy for “street opera” in the first place?

At 1713 N. Cahuenga, on Saturdays and Sundays, 8 p.m., until Oct. 28. $15; (213) 878-6912.