STAGE REVIEWS : ‘My Three Angels’ Blessed With Comic Timing : Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse director Denise Kenney has cast well for the title characters, convicts who bring order to a family’s messy lives.

At the center of Sam and Bella Spewack’s venerable “My Three Angels” are three sparkling comic roles. These are the angels--Gallic to the core, they’re actually convicts in French Guiana who are repairing the roof of a local shop. When they descend a ladder into the family room below, they proceed to bring order to the mess the resident family finds itself in.

The actors Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse director Denise Kenney has placed in these roles bring to life what would otherwise have been a rather dull production. Tom Hardy is a delight as Joseph, the embezzler, trickster and forger. His comic timing is excellent, and his physical shtick adds a nice touch. John Rappazzini’s Jules, who did away with a nagging wife, is as pompous and respectful of the law as he can be. Rappazzini’s calm delivery adds the right flavor. Eric Gurney’s young Alfred, whose love of wine and women brought an end to a miserly stepfather, is fresh and buoyant.

Gurney’s energy and humor, Rappazzini’s flavorful delivery and Hardy’s comic timing and physical shtick are as French as Camembert, Calvados and Gauloises .

Sandi Sullivan’s tropical bamboo-flavored set is also right on target, as is the charming, effervescent performance of Coryn Keating as the family’s daughter, Marie Louise, and the priggish, mercenary Paul of Al Nowicki, whom Marie Louise mistakenly loves. Sean Katlen makes a bright, brief appearance at the end as the squeaky-clean young lieutenant whom Marie Louise has the good luck to meet just in time.

Tim Bercovitz, as her father, Felix, does a lot of acting, but most of it results in a deep frown to indicate worry, and he looks in very strange places for a missing case of Cognac. A similar one-note level is found in the performance of Tracy Godfrey as Paul’s ramrod-stern uncle, who cheated Felix out of his large store back in Cherbourg, and is out to do the same here. Ilona Honeyman is pretty emotionless as Marie Louise’s mother, and Sheri Savage poses a lot as a pushy, social-butterfly customer.

It is the angels’ show, as the Spewack’s wrote it, and it still is in this staging.

‘My Three Angels’

* A Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse production of the Sam and Bella Spewack play. Directed by Denise Kenney. With Tim Bercovitz, Ilona Honeyman, Coryn Keating, Sheri Savage, Tom Hardy, John Rappazzini, Eric Gurney, Tracy Godfrey, Al Nowicki and Sean Katlen. Set: Sandi Sullivan. Costumes: Monica Knight. Lighting: Mark Andrews. Sound: Steeve Jacobs. At the Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse, 661 Hamilton St., Costa Mesa. Thursday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m. $10. (714) 650-5269. Running time: 2 hours, 5 minutes.