‘Babes’ a Fine Tribute to 1940s Musicals

The times are turning tuneful. That melody you hear in the air is from the live stage. Original musicals, rare in Los Angeles theater, are springing up on small stages in Hollywood as if Mickey and Judy were back putting on a show.

“Babes,” at the Cast Theatre, is a salute to juvenile contract stars at a studio like MGM in 1942. This is a show to fall in love with. But like a party guest who lingers too long, this production would be wise to step back and cut its 2 1/2-hour playing time by a good 30 minutes.

Nevertheless, the energy is infectious. The lacquered hairstyles gleam, Scott Lane’s costumes are delightful, Brian Shucker’s music and lyrics are rousing and plaintive, Michael Lopez’ choreography is swell, and Michael Michetti’s direction has verve.

Bill Sawyer’s book dramatizes a group of kids on a studio lot shooting a wartime movie musical. The backstage and rehearsal scenes are derivative and owe a debt to “A Chorus Line.” But mercifully “Babes” is a tribute, not a satire.

The leading players are innocent, brash, ambitious, insecure. Under Jeff Biddinger’s vivid lighting, the show’s central characters animate the stage: Shawn Daywalt’s Judy Garland-tinged songstress, Andy Steinlen’s cocky teen star, Larry Johnson’s nervous outsider, and Cindy Alexander’s lovetorn second banana who gets a shot at stardom.

At 800 N. El Centro Ave., Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 7 p.m., through Dec. 16. $15; (213) 462-0265.

‘Club Soda’: Inventive Musical Prose Poem

An equally strong musical set in the same period is “Club Soda” at the St. Genesius Theatre. This show relies on musical chestnuts but its artistic impulses and design are inventive.

We’re on a lamplit street in Brooklyn. It’s 1947, and the opening moment’s artful choreography snaps your head back. The actors materialize like quiet, graceful figures from a jazz dream who break into soundless jive. A distant melody from the Mills Brothers breaks the silence. The narrative journey, again a teen odyssey about growing up, unfolds effortlessly under the fox-trot staging of director Michael Goldberg.

“Club Soda” is a musical prose poem. It isn’t puttin’ on the Ritz (that’s “Babes”). This is a club basement valentine with a choric heartbeat about throbbing postwar obsessions, like dancing, making out and getting married.

It features an eager, lovely performance by Cynthia Mann as the alter ego of the New York playwright, Leah Kornfeld Friedman. The playwright’s son, Paul Benvictor, co-stars as the street-wise, love-smitten boyfriend in this six-character, autobiographical work.

The vibrant Leslie Sachs, spinning like a top in her wedgies, sublimely portrays three characters, and Ben Arnette, Emilio Borelli and Richard Cooper make up the scruffy club soda members.

The murky lighting in “Club Soda” needs to brighten up, especially during dance and vocal routines. But Marc Bennett’s scenic design, Michael Higgins’ finger snapping musical staging, and Sandra Davidson’s costumes are sharp touches.

At 1047 N. Hayvenhurst Ave., Fridays through Sundays, 8 p.m., Saturday late show, 10:30 p.m., through Dec. 2. $12.50; (213) 466-1767.

‘We’re Actors’ an Enjoyable Pastiche

An upscale Club Soda is the Rose Tattoo, a cabaret night spot that’s staging a musical pastiche called “We’re Actors, Please Don’t Leave.”

The neuroses of actors--aging, rejection, auditions, elusive fulfillment--are lyrically rendered in this likeable revue, featuring three women and two men. The material, with book and lyrics by performer David Goldsmith, does get repetitious. But like “Club Soda,” it’s intermissionless and breezes by in about an hour and 15 minutes.

With a big city skyline as a backdrop, you can imagine yourself in a watering hole on the Sunset Strip in the ‘40s and ‘50s. The show turns even clubbier with drinks (minimum two).

Pianist John Kavanaugh’s live music and Randy Brenner’s staging are crisp, and the cast is vocally attractive. One member (the tallest, brunette Michele Pawk) is gorgeous if you’re in the mood for staring. Unaccountably, the cast (others are Stacey Scotte, Laurie Walton and Bob Walton) are drearily costumed in blacks and grays.

A sentimental AIDS motif is dispensable. But the songs will pick you up, among them “I’m Wildly Platonic With You,” “Playing at Art,” and “At the Barre.”

At 655 N. Robertson Dr., Mondays only, 8:30 p.m., through Dec. 17. $10, plus two drink minimum; (213) 854-4455.

‘Zip, Zam, Boom’ Zigs, Zags the Wrong Way

The bizarre family comedy “Zip, Zam, Boom” at the 2nd Stage is blessed with two loony performers, David Swift and Mark Burnham, who epitomize ungainly, gangly youths who might be your next-door neighbors. But the show is marred by its shifting tone, wavering between dementia and serious drama, and its woolly premise about a family trying to help the father commit suicide.

The production is undermined by a tiresome, unsympathetic mother (Pat Bradley) and a flavorless, bland central role of a guy renting a room--unfortunately performed by playwright Gavin Atkins.

Most of the talent here is from the L.A. City College Theatre Academy, including Atkins and his director/brother Terrence Atkins.

At 6500 Santa Monica Blvd., on alternate Thursdays through Sundays, 8 p.m., and Sundays, 3 p.m. (in repertory with one-woman musical, “Undressing New Jersey”), through Dec. 8. $15; (213) 466-1767.

Brecht Curiousity Piece a Numbing Affair

During Bertolt Brecht’s exile in the U.S. in the ‘40s he wrote a curious comedy about class warfare called “Puntilla and His Hired Man.” Puntilla (boisterously and gruffly played by bulky Kerry Burke) is an orgiastic landowner who acts like a chummy reformer when he’s drunk, which is most of the time, but reverts to greedy arrogance when he’s sober.

The production at the Flight Theater at the Complex, a benefit for Greenpeace directed by Jackson Harvey, negotiates the characteristic hallmarks of Brechtian theater, enjoys strong vocals in the scenic transitions, and captures the sexual politics in scenes between the spoiled mistress of the manor (a willowy Diana Karanikas) and the estate’s rough-hewn chauffeur (the swarthy Dean Stuart).

But the talk wears you out after a point, and visually the largely empty set becomes numbing, too.

At 6472 Santa Monica Blvd., Fridays through Sundays, 8 p.m., Sunday matinees, 2 p.m., through Dec. 2. $12; (213) 464-2124.

Good Acting Can’t Save ‘Tigers’ at the Complex

It’s 3 a.m. and we’re in a big-city holding cell. The rebel protagonist of Vincent Sassone’s two-character, hour-long one-act “Tigers” prefers “The Warriors” to “Catcher in the Rye.” The feral Mickey Yablans gives this character a visceral presence that almost salvages the show at the Complex.

As a study in technique, the production is like a theater kit. Director Scott Williamson’s tight staging, Philip Schmidt’s grungy set and lighting, and actor Alex D’Andrea’s stable boyhood pal, come to bail out the anti-hero, are polished turns.

But the willful central character has been done to death and you don’t care about him. You care more about his comparatively dull friend trying to keep his distance from his wild buddy. In sum: good work, ordinary material.

At 6476 Santa Monica Blvd., Thursdays through Sundays, 8 p.m., Sunday matinees, 3 p.m., though Nov. 25. $7; (213) 464-2124.