Lurid ‘Jimmy Dean’ : Ed Grazyk’s rather hokey melodrama lays it on thick in a Cal Lutheran production.

In many small towns, the center of community activity is the local diner or general store. Two plays set in just such a milieu are being performed in repertory by members of the California Lutheran University drama department.

William Inge’s “Bus Stop” opens tonight; last week, Ed Grazyk’s “Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean” made its debut.

Both plays are pretty hokey by today’s standards, but both provide plenty of meat for young actors to chew on, and the “Jimmy Dean” cast members sink their teeth in deep.

James Dean co-starred in the 1956 “Giant,” filmed in Marfa, Tex. According to Grazyk’s play, Dean captured the hearts of the locals, several of whom formed a fan club, the Disciples of James Dean.

Twenty years later, when members of the club reunite, Jimmy Dean is missing. Not the star; he’s been dead for two decades. Not the country sausage king, either. This missing Jimmy Dean is the son of one of the fan club members; his mother, Mona, has been claiming for his entire life that the actor was Jimmy’s father.

The gals, now all in their 30s, are reminiscing with one another and dime store owner Juanita when into the store comes a stranger, a woman who seems to know more about local history than a newcomer would be likely to.

“Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean,” which played on Broadway in the 1981-82 season, heaps it on pretty thick--both the twangy, stereotyped Texans and the lurid melodrama. But things, need we mention, are not all that they seem.

Though the revelatory fireworks of Act II make it all worthwhile, it takes the better part of the first act to figure out what’s going on. Grazyk intermingles past and present, with characters from both time frames often on stage at the same time. More confusing still, while he gives us different actresses playing “then” and “now” versions of some characters, three actresses play their characters in both eras.

There are also those accents to reckon with, and what seems to be a race among the cast to see who can spit the dialogue out fastest--most of the time, the play sounds like Saturday night at Flo’s Yellow Rose.

Amanda Boggs and Teri Eckert star as Mona and Sissy. Jimmy Dean’s mother, Mona, is relatively shy and conservative. Sissy is a barrel of fun; you can imagine Dolly Parton in the part. Their younger counterparts are played with giddy confidence by Kristin A. Spengler and Myna Anderson, respectively.

Elisa Johns and Laura Backus play two more members of the Disciples as both adults and youngsters. Perry Ursen is appropriately creepy as Joe, a social misfit who’s the one male member of the club. Tracy Bersley is the mysterious stranger, and Marianne Corney (the one member of the cast and production crew who isn’t a Cal Lutheran student) plays store owner Juanita.

The acting is generally of a piece, although overplaying such a florid script may be next to impossible. Director Rob O’Neill keeps the action moving smoothly, perhaps too much so. An easier pace in the first act might have helped the characters establish themselves a little more.

Eckert’s costume design and Michael Roehr’s set are impressive, though somebody ran the recorded music with a pretty heavy hand at Friday night’s performance.

* WHERE AND WHEN

“Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean” continues through Nov. 21 at the California Lutheran College Little Theater, 60 W. Olsen Road, Thousand Oaks. Performances are 9 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday and 8 p.m. Nov. 21. “Bus Stop,” which will be reviewed here next Thursday, is performed at 8 p.m. today and Friday, 6 p.m. Saturday, 8 p.m. Nov. 22 and 23, and 2 p.m. Nov. 24. General admission is $5, free with Cal Lutheran identification. For reservations or information call 493-3410.