‘Telethon’ Misses Its Target’s Jugular

Jerry’s Kids have had better days. As if the Jerry Lewis muscular dystrophy telethon wasn’t getting enough slams from every quarter, including Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp, Susan Nussbaum’s and Will Hammack’s somber, barely fictionalized lampoon, “Telethon,” at the Burbage Theatre, threatens to finish off Jerry and his kids for good.

At the same time, “Telethon” doesn’t really go for the jugular--its varying tone is everything but wicked--and director Terry Bozeman’s staging lacks the hallucinatory, single-minded feeling of Lewis’ own telethon. It’s interesting, for instance, that the best comic moments happen on video screens, where we see Peter Calloway (an unctuous Tim Halligan) dish out his video tabloid expose on entertainer Bobby Astor’s (Charles Stransky) telethon. The subject is so wrapped up with TV that when the play is happening on the tube, it becomes vital.

On stage, there’s a lot of slack. When Jane (Maggie McDermott), one of Bobby’s disabled guests, launches into a diatribe denouncing the show’s ethic of “pity the poor MS victim,” it should feel like a bolt from the blue. But McDermott, herself a disabled actress, doesn’t let the anger boil. Stransky’s problem, on the other hand, is that he indicates too soon that Bobby’s a scumbag.

What, then, are we getting out of this? Moments--like rousing by-play by Stransky fooling around with his comic buddy Manny (Larry Brandenburg as the definitive aging Vegas stand-up), or Peter interviewing a confused sponsor (Brandenburg, again, in a stunning switch) and a bitter friend of Bobby’s (Dean Hill, who’s somehow both creepy and friendly). Unlike “Network,” its clearest film cousin, “Telethon” flinches from firing its best shots.

“Telethon,” Burbage Theatre, 2330 Sawtelle Blvd., West Los Angeles. Thursdays, 8 p.m.; Fridays-Saturdays, 9 p.m.; Sundays, 4 p.m. Ends Oct. 18. $12-$15; (310) 478-0897. Running time: 2 hours.

‘MA’ Is All Idea and No Follow-Through

Writer-director Peter Conti’s idea for his “MA (Murderers Anonymous),” at the Complex, makes more sense the more you think about it, even as the play falls apart the more you look at it. Conti imagines a 12-step program for homicidal types, and why not, when nearly everything in the culture has become framed as an addiction?

But “MA” is all idea and no follow-through. The weekly meeting starts on time, with a parade of types filing in, from mafioso snuff film producers (Steve Tancora and Stan Freitag) to a Beverly Hills brat (Ali Humiston) who killed her parents to a woman who had an abortion (Darlene Vogel). “Murderer,” then, is broadly defined, but Cheryl (Renee Estevez), group founder and peacekeeper, manages to hold the motley crew together.

That is, until her serial-killing dad (Harris Shore) is released from prison and joins the group. It’s hard to say who loses control first--Cheryl of the group, or Conti of the play’s black humor. Act Two dissolves into a temper-tantrum orgy of gunfire, which, had it been staged for full outrageous effect (for that, go across the street to the Actors’ Gang’s “Klub”), would have sent “MA” to another level. Shore’s fiery climactic speech, redolent with fascist frenzy, does that momentarily, until things just peter out.

“MA,” The Complex, 6476 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 7:30 and 10 p.m.; Sundays, 7:30 p.m. Indefinitely. $13; (213) 466-1767. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.

Few Surprises in ‘Sexual Serendipity’

Whatever writer-director Rick Edelstein’s would-be comedy “Sexual Serendipity” has, it’s not serendipity.

At the Odyssey Theater, the pleasantly unexpected is immediately wrung out of the play, replaced with a playwright’s obedient parade of puppets. And like some loquacious puppets, they liberally babble on without having a mind of their own.

While we might fathom in some abstract way why seemingly happy husband Jonathan (a vacuous Richard Ruth) might embrace hazard and run out on his wife, Barbara (Susan Diol, who gradually takes over the play), his behavior is an unexplored set of adolescent pranks. “Little boy lost” is how Barbara’s supposedly Jewish mother (Ksenia Prohaska, who inexplicably plays her as an icily Slavic sex goddess) defines Jonathan, but Edelstein never finds him. It becomes, too late, scorned Barbara’s play by default, and Diol cranks up her new-found, nervous horniness with glee.

“Sexual Serendipity,” Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West Los Angeles. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends Sept. 27. $15.50-$19.50; (310) 477-2055. Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes.