O.C. POP MUSIC REVIEW : Dramarama’s in Crisis Mode, but Who Can Tell? : Coach House performances, which may have been the veteran band’s last shows, are intense.

If Saturday night’s performances prove to be Dramarama’s last (and, like just about everything concerning the band right now, that is far from certain), the fellas gave themselves a pretty fair send-off.

Dramarama played two 80-minute shows at the Coach House. If this is indeed the end for the veteran Southern California band, then the excellent early acoustic set made for a highly emotional wake. The late, late electric show, while not exceptional, could serve nevertheless as a proper Viking funeral, set to thundering drums and blazing guitars.

There was little in the six members’ bearing to suggest that Dramarama is in crisis, although it is. After a wobbly eight-year march through the music marketplace in which excellent output has not met with commensurate commercial success, the band recently saw its label, Chameleon, go out of business.

If a new record deal materializes (and right now the band is moving ahead in search of one), Dramarama could continue. Unless, that is, John Easdale, the singer and main songwriter, decides it is time for a change--something he has been mulling. Easdale faces an interesting and difficult quandary: Should he stick with old buddies (everyone in Dramarama except drummer Clem Burke grew up together in Wayne, N.J.) or, in this era in which packaging can matter more than substance, should he opt for a gleaming new box labeled with those market-friendly words, “new and improved?”

Dramarama didn’t raise those issues on stage. When a fan asked during the first set if the band was breaking up, Easdale said: “That’s all rumor and innuendoes.”

But the bad luck and frustration that have put Dramarama in crisis are at the core of Easdale’s songwriting, especially on the band’s most recent album, “Hi-Fi Sci-Fi.”

In the acoustic set, Dramarama presented weariness, frustration and frazzle in varied hues. Rockers built on howling desperation were retooled to reflect quieter desperation, starting with the opening “Work for Food,” which the band converted into a plaintive narrative delivered in Easdale’s most vulnerable voice.

They don’t call it Dramarama for nothing: Easdale is expert at writing richly detailed, evocative character studies of people who find themselves caught in a vise. The acoustic setting put the focus entirely on those characters and their dramas (this was a far more intimate acoustic performance than Dramarama presented in a rather brawny “unplugged” evening at the Coach House in 1992).

The surroundings may have been homey and relaxed as Easdale and bassist Chris Carter sat on a sofa, while guitarists Peter Wood and Mark (Mr. E) Englert occupied a rocking chair and a stool, but the performances were intense. “Prayer,” an explosive rocker on “Hi-Fi,” was taken at a slow, smoldering pace, possibly influenced by Bob Dylan and The Band’s “Basement Tapes” version of “Wheel on Fire.”

While the players were seated, the music stayed in motion.

In “Train Going Backwards,” you could hear the train whistle in Wood’s klaxon acoustic licks, while Carter’s bass picked up the rumbling of the wheels. With “Steve & Edie,” the band broke into an impressive gallop.

The set built to its emotional peak with “Senseless Fun,” in which Easdale used voice and body language to tap a deep vein of utter anguish in the role of a rocker sucked dry by his misfortunes in the music biz. This was indeed funeral music, a song in which a young man’s dreams are laid to rest. Englert capped it with a chilly threnody on his E-Bow guitar synthesizer.

For an encore, Dramarama offered its familiar show-closer, “Anything, Anything (I’ll Give You),” but in a slow, folksy reading colored by a button accordion played by the band’s soundman. Easdale roamed the club’s aisles as the song ended, clasping hands and patting shoulders in a touching gesture of reaching out to Dramarama’s fans.

The second show couldn’t match that sustained peak of feeling, although it featured some pretty fair blasting by the band. Burke, who had been commendably restrained in the acoustic set as he moved between bongos and a full kit, gave free reign to his Keith Moon-ish, who-says-the-drummer-can’t-play-lead instincts. The former Blondie basher certainly can drive a band; though dominant, he wasn’t intrusive.

Just a few songs were repeated from the earlier show, including “Work for Food,” the expansive, almost-joyful love song, “Incredible,” a cover of the Beatles’ “I’m So Tired,” and the inevitable “Anything, Anything” (again featuring accordion, but this time with the whole band playing at full blast).

Easdale, who hasn’t always been at ease as a front man, was a tad forced at times, especially on “Work for Food,” in which he tried to act out virtually every verse with some kind of gesture. As in lyric writing, where one telling image is better than a profusion of ones that are beside the point, inhabiting a song doesn’t take a lot of moves, just the right ones. In the case of “Work for Food,” the lyrical images are so strong that Easdale need only sing the part of its broken-down musician convincingly.

At the end of “Where’s the Manual,” one of the strongest electric numbers, he offered a nice sight gag but partly spoiled the joke when he hammered it in with a spoken tag line that was the equivalent of a “did-ya-get-it?” poke in the ribs.

With his acute melodic sense, Easdale is as capable of writing a hit song as any smart-pop artist around (not a song in the two shows lacked a memorable hook). It’s hard to conceive of the music industry not giving him more chances to swing for the fences, whether with Dramarama or with other players to be named later.

Factory opened both shows, and its late set indicated solid progress.

Singer Jeff Wright was far more comfortable on stage than he had been in a Coach House appearance just six months ago, when he showed little presence. Though some of his gestures were stilted, Wright is clearly making progress toward being an effective focal point for the band. He even got into some Peter Gabriel-like body contortions during one number.

Musicianship is a strength of his young Orange County band, although some of its progressive-rock excursions are too diffuse, and its borrowing from the Police still too persistent. All five members are strong talents; the question is whether they will find the spark of inspiration that gives talent a fruitful direction.