STAGE REVIEW : Sketchy Night of Comedy : L.A. Connection’s ‘Absurdity Required’ dubs some new twists into old movie classics. The improvisation group also gets members of the audience into the act.

Regardless of what director Tim Burton does in his upcoming film biography of C movie maker Ed Wood Jr., it’s unlikely to match the lunacy of what the improv group L. A. Connection has done to Wood’s “Plan Nine From Outer Space” in appearances at movie theaters. The group’s forte is screening movies like “Plan Nine” without the original soundtrack and supplying live, wiseacre dubbing--the more malapropisms, the better.

Alas, almost nothing in “Absurdity Required,” L. A. Connection’s stage show of improvs and written skits at its Sherman Oaks theater, matches “Plan Nine’s” hilarity either.

When director-performer Kent Skov and company do their movie-dubbing routine, they’re playing to their strength (Saturday’s show included a nutty clip of tribesmen facing off against an aluminum robot-beast, Jose Ferrer as “Cyrano de Bergerac” and Bob Hope trying to sing “99 Bottles of Beer”).

When it comes to hatching original scenes, the ideas--more often than not--just don’t flow. An improv with Skov and Doug Requa changing identities as they clean a carpet was silly rather than dazzling, and a skit with DMV bureaucrat Skov abusing Requa ended up curiously grim. These, along with Skov and Brian Palermo as guys playing dueling spurs, are expendable items from the Connection’s pool of material.

What’s left includes a funny “Mating Game,” aided Saturday by an audience member named Dave who adopted a terrific deadpan approach as the fellow picking a date--and what a trio to pick from: Steve Pinto’s elderly Jewish divorcee, Bonnie Cahoon’s insane woman and Kelly Goodman’s terrifying Russian weightlifter. Palermo played emcee here, but his entrance was so sudden that it took him a while to get the audience on his side--a recurring problem.

Other audience-participation pieces, such as Palermo as a forgetful ventriloquist with Pinto as his dummy, or Cahoon and Goodman hosting a cable-access show with guests George Bush (Pinto, doing Dana Carvey doing Bush) and Ronald Reagan (a dead-on Skov) pulled the crowd in.

Indeed, unlike most improv groups, L. A. Connection takes the risk of having audience members improvise.

Consider yourself warned.

Where and When What: “Absurdity Required.” Location: L. A. Connection Comedy Theatre, 13442 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks. Hours: 9 p.m. Saturdays, indefinitely. Price: $12. Call: (818) 784-1868.