Groundlings’ Rookies in ‘Sunday Side Up’

Director Melanie Graham, a veteran player in the big-time Groundlings ensemble, began as a Groundling with the rookie Sunday group. Now, with “Sunday Side Up,” she’s guiding a mostly fresh flock of Sunday players through some rigorously smart comedy (when the skits are written) and some aimless attempts at yuks (when it’s improv time). As with any comedy unit finding its identity, the individual parts are funnier than the whole.

One consistency is a keen sense of the absurd tensions between men and women. Whether it’s Alexandra Wentworth’s bride-to-be roaring through her period, or Michael McDonald (an especially quick and witty mind) and Jennifer Coolidge battling in transit to Magic Mountain, there’s a running theme of total sexual breakdown.

Some scenes derive their juice from a good symbiosis between director and players, as in “Club Them,” where clubgoers can’t get past the doorman, or “Lonesome,” a silent black comedy in a park that’s like a Drew Friedman comic come to life. Last Sunday, though, none of the improvs took flight, and you could sense the cast’s frustration, especially since they had already proven their comedy chops. Maybe this Sunday. . . .

“Sunday Side Up,” Groundlings Theatre, 7307 Melrose Ave., Hollywood, Sundays, 7:30 p.m. Indefinitely. $11; (213) 934-9700. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.

Darrow Igus Relates the Story of ‘Zeke’

A monologue from Zeke Wallace, the human repository of the black experience in Hollywood, is an obvious but viable vehicle for Darrow Igus, who wrote it with Toyomi Gibson-Igus and performs it with palpable relish at the Comedy Store’s upstairs Belly Room.

The show probably has a lock on the year’s longest title--”Zeke! From ‘Birth of a Nation’ to ‘Jungle Fever’: A History of Blacks in the Movies as Told by Zeke Wallace”--and after all that, the title doesn’t really suggest the show’s light nature, under Igus’ and Bob Bailey’s direction.

Zeke is a lowly studio janitor who corners a kid sneaking around after hours, then lays his life story on the youngster. Naturally, he has to keep him entertained, so he mixes in dancing, seductive yarn-spinning, loads of impersonations (Igus is especially adept at Martin Luther King and Fred Astaire) and his bitterly tinged autobiography.

The old man is so keenly aware of his own personal shortcomings that he never allows himself a bald diatribe against white Hollywood. At the same time, Igus shows how talent simply wasn’t enough for African-American performers before the ‘60s: They were locked into a hierarchy of types from which only Paul Robeson managed to escape.

For Zeke, the ‘60s black hero, epitomized by Jim Brown (Igus’ mime of an action scene from “The Dirty Dozen” is the real coup de theatre here) is little better than the subsequent “blaxploitation” and buddy movies. Zeke’s real hope is Spike Lee (but what about the new wave led by John Singleton?). The hope for this show is that Igus can find a bigger stage than the microscopic Belly Room: He needs a space as big as his subject.

“Zeke!,” the Comedy Store’s Belly Room, 8433 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, Wednesdays-Thursdays, 8:30 p.m. Ends Feb. 27. $10; (310) 822-8814. Running time: 1 hour, 10 minutes.

Steve Goldring Relates His Own Life Story

With program credits for a book by Steve Goldring and Richard G. Murphy, music and lyrics by Goldring and music direction by Jeff Levi, “And Now for My Next Life,” at the Zephyr Theatre, hints at being a real musical.

In fact, Goldring’s solo show is a wan concert of homogenized (and taped) mid-tempo Manilow-esque tunes that punctuate the performer’s monologue about his own life.

Goldring’s story of a young Ohioan finding his gay identity, trying to make it in New York and Hollywood and coping with being HIV-positive is, on the surface, poles apart from Rick Reynolds’ autobiographical “Only the Truth Is Funny.” But each is after a personal catharsis that becomes the audience’s. Reynolds achieved it with brutally terse self-deprecation--exactly what’s missing from Goldring’s terribly self-involved (and self-directed) portrait and manner. Neither his concert nor his story make any connections.

“And Now for My Next Life,” Zephyr Theatre, 7456 Melrose Ave., Hollywood, Tuesdays-Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Ends Feb. 26. $10; (213) 660-8587. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.

‘Intimate Space’: Sweating It Out

A few of us may imagine that a nice, nasty fate for over-aerobicized Westside yupsters would be their sudden incarceration in their own sweat palace. Unfortunately, Gale Baker imagined this, then dreamed up ( wrote and directed don’t suffice) an interminably suffocating drama-tragedy-screamfest titled “Intimate Space, the Last Frontier,” at the Complex.

Here, the incarceration is triple-time: For the actors (seldom has a cast looked so defeated by the material), for the characters (vaporous all) and for the audience (a few fled during the performance). The intrusion of Wayne Paul Mattingly’s ridiculous fool is a true act of dramaturgical desperation, but it’s like throwing a weight into a leaky boat. This, by the author of the bright, witty “Pin Curls”? Say it ain’t so, Gale.

“Intimate Space, the Last Frontier,” the Complex, 6476 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood, Thursdays-Sundays, 8 p.m. Ends March 1. $10-$15; (213) 466-1767. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

‘In the Half Light’: Dealing With Death

Shem Bitterman subtitles his “Standing in the Half Light,” at the Burbage Theatre, “Five Ghost Plays,” which immediately announces that we’ll be dealing with death. Through much of the evening, though, Bitterman isn’t sure how to deal with it.

Bitterman enjoys roaming free thematically and stylistically, and each piece in “Standing in the Half Light” stakes out distinct territory. “Found in a Bottle,” with Jace Kent as a wigged-out astronaut, is as manic--and pointless--as the following “The Tunnel,” with the powerful pairing of William Dennis Hunt and Sharron Shayne, is quietly wrenching.

“The Benefit of the Doubt,” with Robert William Bradford and Mark Fite as two buddies musing over a lost friend, never fixes on a tone or purpose. You don’t believe a word that’s spoken here, so it’s strange to note how conversely believable Kara Miller is as a grieving, psychopathic girlfriend of a killer in “Mikey Says. . . .” Bitterman has really delved inside this girl’s head--her pathetic dependence masked by a bloody-minded brio--but you soon want to turn off her chatterbox.

Miller remains on stage (director Alec Doyle arranges some nice, discreet transitions) as Hunt’s psychiatrist in “The Heart at Play.” Hunt makes a marvelous switch from his haunted Holocaust survivor in “The Tunnel,” but he can’t find a way to energize this scene about a father whose way of coping with his daughter’s death is to lose his mind in an imaginary park full of children.

“Standing in the Half Light,” Burbage Theatre, 2330 Sawtelle Blvd., West Los Angeles, Fridays-Saturdays, 9:30 p.m.; Sundays, 7:30 p.m. Ends March 8. $15; (310) 478-0897. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.