THEATER REVIEW : ‘Coaches’ Goes Beyond the Pep Talk : Autobiographical sketches of Knute Rockne, Vince Lombardi and Bear Bryant offer a comedic look at myth-making.

Theater in Los Angeles will be just fine, once it gets rid of showcase productions. It’s a mantra, and it also happens to be true. (Interestingly, no one has ever come up with a way to get rid of them, since that’s impossible in an Industry town.)

But what is one to do when showcasing actually results in some decent theater? Buddy Farmer’s “Coaches,” at Company of CharActors, is modest, amusing evidence for the case that for every truth, there’s an exception.

It isn’t clear until the very end where and when Farmer is situating his characters, who happen to be football’s top three coaching legends: Notre Dame’s Knute Rockne (Herb Mitchell), the Green Bay Packers’ Vince Lombardi (John Pinero) and the University of Alabama’s Bear Bryant (Farmer). Indeed, only at the end does Farmer bring his trio together, in a kind of spiritual scrimmage that might be titled “Heaven Can’t Wait.” Until then, these coaches have been telling us directly about their lives, victories and rare defeats.

Yet “Coaches” isn’t monologue theater. When its heroes speak to the audience, they fit the pop culture image built around them, mainly by television. Rockne gives a pep talk, Lombardi offers a sometimes defensive self-account and Bryant serves up a salt-of-the-earth narrative. Just like we remember them (except Rockne) from the Saturday and Sunday broadcasts. The frame around these autobiographical accounts serves as a reminder that what we’re watching is a new level of myth-making. Farmer isn’t at all interested in exposes, but rather in toying with how theater can mix it up with sports.

Usually when theater does this, melodrama results. With “Coaches,” it ends up in comedy. Rockne revs us up with a lecture on, not student body left, but the flute. Lombardi may revel in winning the first Super Bowl, but his wife (Melanie Jones) tells him how to dress. Bryant’s story on his nickname becomes a tale out of Bret Harte.

Tall tales for big men. The scale, the tone, the sense of football as a calling are all balanced in “Coaches,” but Farmer and director Richard Clayman go further. Other characters are always appearing like pop-up figures illustrating matters. They lend the play a deliciously ironic accent: The encounter, for instance, between Bryant and Pinero as the oh-so-casual Joe Namath is a clash of styles and generations that goes beyond football.

Or when the God-fearing Bryant trembles with fear that he won’t get into heaven--with the amusing Jones as the Woman Upstairs dressed in a referee outfit with a bullhorn. Mitchell, Pinero and Farmer show a remarkable ability to look and sound like the pigskin icons. But “Coaches” is about expanding pop myths and resists trying the no-win game of life-like re-creations. The former gets you up on the board; the latter gets you sacked.

WHERE AND WHEN

* What: “Coaches.”

* Location: Company of CharActors, 12655 Ventura Blvd., Studio City.

* Hours: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays.

* Price: $10.

* Call: (213) 466-1767.