Tamarind’s ‘Wild Oats’ Puts Fiber in Laugh Diet

John O’Keefe’s 1791 comedy “Wild Oats, or The Wandering Gentleman,” was typical of its time: frothy, filled with shifting identities, with everything coming out right in the last scene, lovers and brothers properly matched.

Playwright James McLure updated it to America’s turn-of-the-century West, adding amusing anachronisms. It’s a lot of fun in this joyously energetic production at Hollywood’s Tamarind Theatre.

The wild oats sown by Col. Thunder (Gordon Hurst) when he was young involved a marriage he thought was phony but wasn’t (he disappeared the next day). That causes a problem later for his son Harry (Michael Lindsay), who’s been booted from West Point and joined some traveling players, under the name Dick Buskin.

The leading actor, Jack Rover (Eddie Driscoll), becomes his bosom buddy. They even trade identities because of the marriage the colonel has arranged for his son. But Rover isn’t really Rover, he’s Seymour Seymour and . . . well, you get the idea.

Director Allan Royal keeps it all tumbleweeding along, even adding a few touches that generate their own laughs. If there were a complaint it would be that a little more restraint overall would get more and bigger laughs. The more earnest the characters, the funnier.

Lindsay and Driscoll as the two heroes keep from going overboard, and Jill Ann Womack easily balances a fine line, between heroine Kate’s lusty self and the finishing school Kate Hepburn she presents to Rover. Gerald P. Nevin is a hoot as the Irish-Indian scout, Cpl. Crow, and gratitude goes to Tara Karsian for her dead serious and therefore hysterical Amelia, who is the sister of the Mexican cactus farmer who is being foreclosed and the mother of. . . . Well, visit “Wild Oats” and have a few laughs.

“Wild Oats,” Tamarind Theatre, 5919 Franklin Ave., Hollywood. Mondays-Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Runs indefinitely. $12; (213) 856-4784. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

‘Scorpio’ Only Partly Captures Lure of Road

The world of bikers, like any other clan effort, is a magnet for joiners. It helps bikers feel as though they “belong.” Sometimes, according to Jeff Koch’s “Scorpio Rising,” at Burbank’s Little Victory Theatre, the feeling wears thin and the outlaws wander listlessly back into the real world.

The bikers in this play are also sons of bikers but, like most second generations, they don’t have the spirit of the originals. When they get together for what will be their last meeting, at a campsite in the San Gabriel Mountains, they, like their club, are coming apart at the seams.

The only person really into their fun and games is a yuppie camper who comes to complain, and stays to be entranced by the siren call of the road, a siren call playwright Koch has only partially captured.

The Scorpios spend a lot of time talking about being bikers, but do little about it. Koch gives them no cataclysm to rend their bond. Nothing is at stake except their petty disagreements and personality clashes. There is no bolt of lightning to make the siren scream in pain and jolt the Scorpios.

Koch, who also plays the biker who lost his legs in an accident, has a good ear for raunchy dialogue and a strong sense of character. He hasn’t yet found the guts of his play. Koch, Jason Huber (the yuppie), Thomas Clary and Dean Young give good imitations of biker types, but the performances that ring truest and clearest are Ron Wood’s as Harley Zane and Douglas Lieblein as Poet.

Under Adam Sholder’s decisive direction, these two give off sparks.

“Scorpio Rising,” Little Victory Theatre, 3324 W. Victory Blvd., Burbank. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends Sept. 28. $10; (818) 718-0668. Running time: 1 hour,50 minutes.

‘Pumpkin Patch’ Needs Fleshing Out

Playwright Cathy Comenas seems to be out of the John Steppling school of writing, by way of the Padua Hills Playwrights Workshop. The scenes in her volatile “The Pumpkin Patch,” at Hollywood’s Theatre/Theater, are Steppling snippets, like looking at drama by the intermittent light of a flashing neon sign. Only Steppling can make it work.

Set in Cajun country, and directed with fiery flavor by Harvey Perr, “Pumpkin” gives fascinating hints at what the play could be with flesh and bones under its present skin. The characters are low-lifes--rapists, child molesters, hustlers, deviates--all the more startling because most are still in school. The play has a lot to say about its little world, but its dramatic sentences are unfinished.

Natasha Mitchnick and Daniel O’Shea give the fullest performances--as adopted brother and sister who are also lovers--probably because their characters are the most fully drawn.

“The Pumpkin Patch,” Theatre/Theater, 1713 Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood. Saturdays, 8 & 10 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Runs indefinitely. $10; (213) 871-0210. Running time: 55 minutes.

‘Lights of Bodie’ Lacks Old West’s True Grit

“The Red Lights of Bodie” are the girls who live in a sporting house in that former gold rush town, down on their luck and finances, and about to move on.

Jolene Rice’s play about their plight, well directed by Sheri Shapiro at the Gene Dynarski Theatre, looks vaguely like something MGM might have issued in its golden age, sort of a sister to “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.” Louis B. Mayer would have blanched at some of the lines, but it’s all innocent.

There is little of the real Old West here, none of the grit and dust, and none of the hard interior the characters should have.

There are stereotypes, including two low-comic sporting girls (Ann Milligan, Suzanne Krull), the innocent who comes in shame to join their abandoned life (Scarlett Fever, played by Audrey Colton Smith) and the nice townswomen (Susan Hunkin), who rejects the advances of one of the inmates.

The hooker who loves the townswoman is played by the playwright, which may account for the fact that it’s the best written role and the best performance.

The others find their marks, but there’s not much they can do when they get there.

“The Red Lights of Bodie,” Gene Dynarski Theatre, 5600 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood. Thursdays-Sundays, 8 p.m. Ends Sept. 29. $14-$15; (213) 466-1767. Running time:2 hours, 10 minutes.

Perr, Preston Shine in Weak ‘Aftershock’

Harvey Perr, who directed and appears in “The Pumpkin Patch,” also turns up in Neil Tucker’s “Aftershock: The Movie,” a play that vainly aspires to an absurdist style at Hollywood’s Cast Theatre. Perr is very funny as a husband with heart trouble during the 1987 Whittier earthquake. Tina Preston is also very funny as his kinetic wife, who is so terrified she abandons hubby, who’s having a stroke, on the freeway and heads for Las Vegas for some fun.

Their performances are the only amusing things in the production. Director John DiFusco tries his best to get laughs out of the frantic action, but Sydne Squire, Wally Bagot and Liza Rivera as neighbors, and Hal Harrison as an oily Texan aren’t even close to the required style.

“Aftershock: The Movie,” Cast Theatre, 804 N. El Centro Ave., Hollywood. Wednesdays-Fridays, 8 p.m. Ends Oct. 4. $10; (213) 462-0265. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.