Sweeney Keeps ‘Big Apology’ Afloat Back at Groundlings

Just about everyone you talk to has one problem or another with the current “Saturday Night Live,” but just about nobody has any problem with Pat. Pat, for those who have been in deep hibernation, is “SNL’s” favorite mystery person played by Julia Sweeney--a ridiculously enigmatic creature who may be man, may be woman, may be something else.

Before Pat, though, there was Sweeney’s Mea Culpa, the lovably shy, drooping wallflower she created with the Groundlings, then expanded into her two-act comedy (with co-writer Jim Emerson and director Stephen Hibbert), “Mea’s Big Apology.” Four years later, Mea is back at the Groundlings, still apologizing.

We didn’t see her the first time around, but Hibbert has made an effort to ensure that doesn’t matter, reassembling intact the original cast (Sherri Stoner, Maggie Roswell, David Sargent and Andy Schell) in some eye-popping, usually gender-switching double roles.

But just as Pat is funny in quick bits (will he/she go to the men’s or women’s bathroom?), Mea is funniest in those moments when she’s getting snared by the ratty photocopier repair man, or when she gets so sucked into the vortex of her penchant for apologizing that she’s even taking blame for the recession. At nearly two hours, even Mea’s unlikely dilemma--forced into supervising Malco Insurance Co.’s accounting department--isn’t enough to hang a play on.

Instead, you look for those role switches (Roswell’s astonishing turnarounds from no-nonsense Eunice into gung-ho company woman Jill, for example) and Sweeney’s behavior tics. This office will never make you forget the one in “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” but the way Sweeney just bends her arm or head on the beat of a line reminds how a sharp comic can keep a leaky comedy afloat.

“Mea’s Big Apology,” Groundlings Theatre, 7307 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood. Wednesdays, 7:30 p.m. Ends Sept. 2. $12; (213) 934-9700. Running time: 1 hours, 50 minutes.

A Search for Meaning After Father’s Death

Dearly departed fathers, as Jan Munroe displayed in his recent “Nothing Human Disgusts Me,” are both subjects of love and regret as well as catalysts for something larger: The progeny’s search for meaning in the wake of death. Actor Tony Abatemarco lost his father a year ago, and, like Munroe, has sculpted his grief into a performance work, “Four Fathers.”

At Stages, Abatemarco is still on book, and openly tells us that, like his grief, “Four Fathers” is still in progress. Unlike what one would imagine from such a piece, though, the work in store for Abatemarco is not to fill in sketchy passages, but to trim and prune a baroque thicket of words.

He needn’t alter anything in his performance, which reaches majestic levels (as when his father, Anthony, speaks down from heaven to be released). He uses the script as a prop, not a hindrance, and balances an actor’s hypnotizing concentration with naked catharsis. We listen, even as we can’t reconcile memories of a Brooklyn Italian family told in a prose style that apes, of all sources, Henry James. His allusions to Greek myths of fathers and sons are about as much literary weight as the evening can take, for the personal load is already considerable.

“Four Fathers,” Stages, 1540 N. McCadden Place, Hollywood. Tuesdays-Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Ends Aug. 5. $8; (213) 466-1767. Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes.

‘Episode 26’ Spoofs Adventure Stories

Fans of Howard Korder and his masterful black nightmare, “Search and Destroy,” had better check their bags at the door before entering Theatre/Theater to see his “Episode 26.” This verrrry broad spoof of adventure tales and ‘50s science fiction is an exercise in pure cotton candy (though the candy of choice of Korder’s hero, Buzz Gatecrasher, would probably be Cracker Jack).

Watching “Episode 26” (the latest in a phantom series about Buzz’s adventures in outer space), it’s easy to see the source of “Search and Destroy’s” outlandish edge. Korder, it turns out, loves comic books. Here, he plays with the genre’s extremes of good and evil (Dan O’Connor’s true-blue Buzz vs. Neal Lerner’s dark, suave Vaknor, an emperor with some nasty plans). But what director Geoffrey A. Treat and his cast (all from L.A. TheatreSports) revel in are the endless number of requisite gauntlets Buzz storms through. They’re a little too endless, and the company can’t avoid flagging near the climax--even with some loony, hand-made special effects.

“Episode 26,” Theatre/Theater, 1713 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood. Thursdays-Fridays, 8 p.m. Ends Aug. 14. $12; (213) 469-9689. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.

‘Trial of Adolf Hitler’ Mired in Minutiae

Adolf Hitler knew how to sway people. John E. Falotico’s clumsy “The Trial of Adolf Hitler,” at the Rose Theatre, never gets beyond this obvious starting point, and it’s frustrating, since this is a good way to start tackling fascism’s attraction.

Falotico, basing his trial scenes on the transcript of the 1923 case following Hitler’s arrest during the Munich beer hall putsch, feels the need to stuff his play with sideshows: the assistant prosecutor (Albert-James Motil, with a tongue-tied accent) after-hours with his wife (Taylor Leigh), and the court stenographer (a Teutonic Karan Fox) dealing with her visiting American friend (Susan Cardillo).

It adds fat to flab, for the central trial, in Francis Creighton Lynch’s one-dimensional staging, becomes a protracted talkfest that gets lost in the transcript’s minutiae. Michael Artura’s Hitler suggests the young, fully developed tyrant, but is too obnoxious to also suggest his all-important charisma.

“The Trial of Adolf Hitler,” Rose Theatre, 318 Lincoln Blvd., Venice. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends July 26. $12; (310) 392-6963. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.

‘Who Gives a Damn?’ Undercuts Tragedy

The image that sparked director-playwright Alfred Eisaian to write “Who Gives a Damn?”--a baby burned on a stove during the 1989 massacre of Armenians in the city of Sumgait, Azerbaijan--isn’t translated emotionally in Eisaian’s West End Playhouse production.

While he wants to set up his Saroyan family as a normal, happy clan--thus making the mindless tragedy all the more shocking--Eisaian’s lax pacing offers soporific naturalism on one hand and arch melodrama on the other. Instead of being inside a pressure cooker of terror, we’re watching a very slow simmer thanks to the cast’s uneasy mix of professionals and amateurs.

“Who Gives a Damn?,” West End Playhouse, 7446 Van Nuys Blvd., Van Nuys. Friday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 3 p.m. $15-$17.50; (213) 466-1767. Running time: 2 hours.