O.C. THEATER / JAN HERMAN : ‘Angel’ Has a Little Bit of the Devil : Charles Busch’s gender-bent spoof by Way Off Broadway Playhouse is a nice change of pace for the holiday.

The fanciful presence hovering over “Times Square Angel,” the Yuletide production at the Way Off Broadway Playhouse in Santa Ana, is not the Spirit of Christmas Past (or, for that matter, Present or Future) so much as the Ghost of Movies Past.

Charles Busch’s gender-bent spoof marinates the sentiment of both “A Christmas Carol” and “It’s a Wonderful Life” in the 1940s atmosphere of a B-grade Hollywood melodrama about Irish O’Flanagan, a factory-girl-turned-burlesque-queen-turned-gangster’s-moll who loses her soul in the climb up from poverty, until a heaven-sent angel shows her the error of her ways.

Perhaps nobody expresses the selfish, greedy, rotten essence of her hard-boiled nature better than Irish herself in a scene with the condescending Blue Nose mother of her fiance, Dexter Paine III.

After taking a large bribe from the mother not to marry Dexter--a leering stage-door Johnny in a dinner jacket for whom Irish professes ardent love--Irish concedes that dropping him for money must make her seem a monster. But she adds with her inimitable flair for hitting the nail on the head: “I’ll be the best-dressed monster in the whole world.”

The gleeful cynicism of her gold-digging confession also characterizes the off-the-wall tone of “Times Square Angel” from beginning to end. It helps set the style of this production, moreover, that Dexter’s mother is played in drag by the same actor we’ve just seen playing Dexter, and will later see playing the sneering gangster Chick LaFountain. In a typical Busch sendup, somebody has to cross-dress, even if it’s not the leading lady.

When “Times Square Angel” was first produced by the playwright’s New York troupe in the mid-’80s, Busch himself originated the campy role of Irish O’Flanagan, just as he has the heroines of his other parodistic satires: Lady Godiva in “Red Scare on Sunset,” Gertrude Garnet in “The Lady in Question,” Madeleine Astarte in “Vampire Lesbians of Sodom,” Fauna Alexander in “Sleeping Beauty” and Chiclet in “Psycho Beach Party.”

Director Tony Reverditto has cast JudiGeppert as Irish, a same-sex choice that does not diminish the artifice of this “Times Square Angel.” The last time Geppert appeared in a Busch comedy at WOB--as the nerd Berndine in the otherwise weakly cast “Psycho Beach Party”--she stole the show on the strength of a spaced-out performance, even though Berndine was only a featured role. This time she carries the show, with strong support.

While Geppert never does a Barbara Stanwyck impersonation of a nightclub chanteuse in a Frank Capra movie, as Busch apparently imagined Irish, she brings a goofy smirk of her own to the role. Whether hopscotching around as a girl in a white pinafore, or looking the drudge in a zipper factory, or swaggering across the WOB basement stage as a femme fatale in a slinky red evening dress, Geppert has a certain scenery-chewing authority.

Her chief allies in the evening’s antics are Brian McKoy (as Dexter, Mrs. Paine and Chick) and Godfrey Hugley (as Serita, Pop and Peona). Both succeed in lending the show a comic fizz--though, it must be said, their portraits are more bizarre than sharp. (In fact, if Hugley’s depiction of Irish’s maid Peona as an Aunt Jemimah stereotype were not so obviously tongue-in-cheek it would be offensive.)

Others in the large cast to be commended for the high spirit of their performances as well as their apt taste in costumes are David Nelson, who brings snap to his dual role as the angel Albert and Johnny the Noodle; John Heath as Eddie, the love-struck boy-she-left-behind; JoLynn Jones, who brightens a pair of minor roles with an accurate touch, and Eileen Farren, who animates a variety of characters.

Mention also must be made of Reverditto, who probably juggles more assignments as producer, director, set and sound designer than anybody in the show. And whatever else he does, he brings a welcome sense of humor to his work. “Times Square Angel” is a nice change of pace for Christmas. You won’t find anything in the county like it--especially now that “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is gone from Balboa.

‘Times Square Angel’

John Heath: Eddie

David Nelson: Albert/Johnny the Noodle

Judi Geppert: Irish O’Flanagan

Herbert Jensen: Duke O’Flanagan/Milton Keisler

Brian McCoy: Abe Kellelman/Dexter Paine III/Mrs. Paine/Chick LaFountain

Godfrey Hugley: Serita/Pop/Peona

Eileen Farren: Reporter/Miss Ellerbee/Stella/Agnes

Helen Lasater: Annie/Old Mag

JoLynn Jones: Cookie Gibbs/Georgie

Michelle Fashian: Olive Sanborn/Valerie Waverly

Douglas Siskowic: Voice of the Lord

A Way Off Broadway presentation of the play by Charles Busch. Produced and directed by Tony Reverditto. Set and sound design by Tony Reverditto. Lighting design by Cathy Langston. Costumes by the cast. Through Jan. 18, 1992 at the Way Off Broadway Playhouse, 1058 E. 1st St., Santa Ana. Curtain: Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. (no performances Dec. 27 and 28). Tickets: $13 ($1 off with contribution of one canned good, to be donated by the theater to the Children’s Home Society of California). Information: (714) 547-8997.