A Long-Winded but Satisfying ‘Killing’

Where’s “Playhouse 90” when you need it? That show would’ve been the perfect venue for Erik Jendresen’s “The Killing of Michael Malloy.” Impeccably staged and nearly as well acted by the ensemble cast at the Tiffany, this classically textured and finely crafted drama suffers only from its own long-windedness.

Based on events that took place in a 1933 Bronx speak-easy, “The Killing of Michael Malloy” is about a group of guys who set out to bump off a derelict in order to collect some insurance money. They try some outrageous maneuvers, but the guy doesn’t die. That sets it up so that several characters--notably the victim, in a finely honed portrayal by Maurice Roeves--get to wax lyrical on matters both prosaic and existential.

The 12-member cast, under director Ron Link’s smart and steady hand, is exceptional. All of the characters are clearly individuated, and their interactions are calibrated both for verity and symbolic effect. They interact on Yael Pardess evocative set, as a score of songs from 1933 plays.

Cut it down to “Playhouse 90” length--say, a TV 1 1/2 hours--and you’d have a prime piece of work. As is, once you get the gimmick, Act 1 feels protracted. And Act 2, in which the main instigator comes down with a regrettable case of ‘90s dysfunctional family confessionalitis, dies much more quickly than Mr. Malloy.

* “The Killing of Michael Malloy,” Tiffany Theatre, 8532 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, Wednesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7:30 p.m. Runs indefinitely. $22.50-$27.50. (310) 289-2999. Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes.

‘Justice’ Delivered

With Punch, Humor

As fresh-faced ensembles go, Chicago’s the Absolute Truth is better than most. Its “And Justice for All Members in Good Standing, or Proud to Be Un-American” at the Complex has a ‘60s redux patina that isn’t as politically sophisticated as the group seems to think, but the show’s energetic and engaging anyway.

The video- and song-laced collage, written and directed by Alex Baze and Scott Coopwood, uses a sketchy plot, about a guy (the laconic Baze) from a small Wisconsin town who suddenly becomes President, to string together a bunch of skits and bits. The targets aren’t new--commercialism, TV culture, community hypocrisy, corrupt politics and politicians--and neither is the posturing. But it’s delivered with enough punch and humor that you can forgive these Generation X-ers their collegiate leftisms.

The bill also features Baze and Coopwood in a short by Baze called “The Zoo Story Story.” It’s just a one-liner idea, recasting Albee’s park-bench anomie as a debate that asks, as Simon & Garfunkel put it, “Is the theater really dead?” The answer, given that there are promising groups such as the Absolute Truth out there, is that it’s not.

* “And Justice for All Members in Good Standing, or Proud to Be Un-American,” the Complex, Dorie Theatre, 6476 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood, Thursdays-Fridays, Sundays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 7 & 10:30 p.m. Ends Oct . 24. $12.50. (213) 466-1767. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.

‘Opera Comique’ Offers Nothing New

If well-produced fluff is what you want, you could do worse than Jules Aaron’s competent staging of Nagle Jackson’s “Opera Comique” at the International City Theatre. But this French-style farce is just an exercise in cotton-candy style.

The story, set in the upper boxes at the Opera Comique on the night of the premiere of Bizet’s “Carmen,” revolves around a predictable series of assignations betwixt and between a few upper-crusty men and women.

It’s witty all right, but there’s nothing new here in the way of criticism of the mores of the elite. Duplicity and self-involvement are hardly topics left unaddressed by the original French farceurs, and Jackson doesn’t have anything to add.

The cast manages the rhythm and the language OK, but the performances aren’t inventive enough to triumph over the plain-wrap plot. Aaron keeps the traffic flowing without adding any particular meaning to the machinations.

* “Opera Comique,” International City Theatre, Long Beach City College campus, Clark Street and Harvey Way, Long Beach, Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 2 & 7 p.m. Ends Nov. 14. $16. (310) 420-4128 or 420-4051, (213) 480-3232. Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes.

A ‘Bridge’ Mired in Sentimentality

Veteran theater artists Naomi Newman and John O’Neal have found a potentially provocative topic for their “Crossing the Broken Bridge,” at the Freud Playhouse. But their duo-drama about Jewish-American and African-American relations is pitched at the level of high-schoolers and mired in sentimentality.

The alliance between blacks and Jews has been important to contemporary American political life--even here in Los Angeles, where the pivotal Westside-South Central bloc helped elect Tom Bradley mayor. But to hear it told through the tales and personal anecdotes of Newman and O’Neal, the two groups should throw their lots together chiefly because they’ve both suffered and share a fondness for coleslaw.

But childhood recollections and an analogy between concentration camps and slavery aren’t likely to make any new converts to coalition-building. If Newman and O’Neal mean business, they should trade in the quaint historicism for a more probing analysis of the bonds and differences, economic and otherwise, between the groups.

Still, Newman and O’Neal have some great moments here, their self-righteous liberalism notwithstanding. Best are the times when they’re singing traditional Jewish and African-American melodies instead of talking.

* “Crossing the Broken Bridge,” Freud Playhouse, MacGowan Hall, UCLA campus, Westwood, Saturday, 8 p.m. $19. (310) 825-2101. Also Occidental College, Keck Theatre, Eagle Rock, Oct. 23, 8 p.m. $15. (213) 259-2737. Running time: 1 hour, 25 minutes.

‘Combustion’ Doesn’t Catch Fire

Whiny women and self-pitying men rise like curds on sour milk in the ‘50s scenarios of “Combustion of Forces,” a grab bag of six so-so one-acts by William Inge at ACE at the Lex. The production reads like a scene class for actors.

Inge, the meister of repressed Midwesterners, wrote his triumphs around the time these six playlets have been set: 1955. In fact, “Bus Stop” (1955) is probably the full-grown version of the first (and best) sketch in this program, “People in the Wind.” As in the more-famous work, a cowboy hits on a two-bit singer in a roadside diner.

The rest of the mini-plays depict an array of achy-breaky heart scenes. They whimper, they wrangle, they go nutsy if they don’t have sex--and that’s just the women. The put-upon men don’t fare much better. Oh, and everybody’s tanked all the time.

There isn’t much point to staging second-rate Inge, unless you’re out to provide work for actors, which may have been the motive here. The cast is large, if not particularly (or uniformly) talented. But new writers’ work could serve the same dubious purpose.

Inge committed suicide in 1973. This production shot itself in the foot before it even opened.

* “Combustion of Forces,” ACE at the Lex, 6760 Lexington Ave., Hollywood, Fridays-Sundays, 8 p.m. $10. (213) 463-6244. Ends Oct. 31. Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes.