STAGE REVIEW : This ‘Vanities’ a Mere Cartoon : The Backstage Theatre production is static and unimaginative, lacking the detailed and personalized performances the play cries out for to rescue it from slick caricature.

COSTA MESA — Jack Heifner’s comedy “Vanities” chronicles the lives of three girlfriends from their days together as Southern high-school cheerleaders to their days apart as adults living out their lives in and around New York City.

One of those rare scripts that offer more than one juicy female role, “Vanities” enjoyed modest success after its premiere off-Broadway in 1976 (a production that featured no less an actress than Kathy Bates in the role of Joanne).

Popular theatrical mythology has it that Heifner’s script developed out of an acting class exercise. Whether that rumor is true, the play cries out for detailed and personalized performances to rescue it from slick caricature. At the Backstage Theatre, no help is in sight. This “Vanities” is a cartoon, an unfocused cartoon at that.

Even when one considers the limitations of the small space, director Rebecca May’s staging is static and unimaginative. The only potentially eye-arresting element, the dressing tables at which the actresses transform themselves between scenes, is suspended in a remote upstage corner. Not only is it impossible to see much of what goes on up there, but what can be seen adds nothing to the story.

The three girls on whom the plot focuses may be described charitably as foolish and self-centered. Joanne is a hopelessly conventional housewife-to-be who majored in music at college because the registration lines were always shortest. There’s Mary, the rebel who yearns for freedom and finds cynicism, and there’s Kathy, always the planner, the rally organizer, the prom queen, who finds herself lost in a world that doesn’t value “pep.”

Kathy is the straight man to the outrageously extreme Joanne and Mary, and Pam Paulson makes the most out of this underwritten role. Hers is a clear-eyed performance with nuance and byplay sadly lacking in the rest of the production. Robin Cole stresses Joanne’s dim wit at the expense of all other, more endearing features, and has an annoying habit of looking at the floor after every punch line. As Mary, Nina Martin has a girlish charm that degenerates into a relentlessly unattractive snideness.

The conflicts in the third act do jazz things up a little, but Heifner’s script is so slight that even the original New York production struggled to create sympathetic people out of the one-liners and cliches. “Vanities” fails by the very definition of the word itself, as given in the program: “emptiness, unreality, sham, folly, want of real value.”

‘Vanities’

A Backstage Theatre production of the play by Jack Heifner. Produced by Al Valletta. Directed by Rebecca May. With Robin Cole, Nina Martin and Pam Paulson. At 1599 Superior Ave., Suite B-2, Costa Mesa, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. through March 28. Tickets: $12.50. Reservations and information: (714) 646-5887.