THEATER REVIEW : Young Rebel Sizzles, but ‘Surprise’ Fizzles : Don Handfield as the angry adolescent and Clayton Murray as his gay TV-star father liven up Victory Theatre production.

Travis Michael Holder’s play “Surprise, Surprise” and its transparently show case production at the Victory Theatre constitute the kind of theater that used to populate L.A. spaces during the ‘70s and ‘80s: new play, cast with friends and colleagues (including a name to draw a crowd), and made to look and feel like a TV tryout.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, L.A. theater isn’t so full of this kind of showcasing anymore, which is why “Surprise, Surprise” feels so dated and tired.

But in an effort to paint a hip ‘90s gloss on these goods, the center of our attention is directed at a gay couple, and the dialogue is colorized with a lot of less-than-sanitary lingo from--not one of the men, but a woman. And not any woman, but Junie Hannah, as played by Dawn Wells, “Gilligan’s Island’s” Mary Ann.

Unfortunately for Wells, Junie is as peripheral to Holder’s play as Mary Ann was to the Minnow’s fearless crew, and the gay couple of Den (Clayton Murray) and Colin (Scott Cheek) isn’t really at the forefront, either. No, besides showcasing the cast, the central concern of “Surprise, Surprise” is a 15-year-old kid named David (Don Handfield).

Both David and Handfield deserve a better show than this. David arrives on the doorstep of Den, who’s a TV series star, and informs Den that he fathered him 15 years ago. David hates his stepdad, and has watched his injured mom wither away in the hospital. He is the latest, “Lollapalooza”-style edition of the rebel without a cause, but he also needs to find a real home.

As long as Handfield holds center stage, “Surprise, Surprise” matters. Handfield is experienced and old enough to know how to build David’s character and to humanize him (with another young actor, the character could come off as one long whine).

But Handfield is also young enough to make the adolescent aimlessness an honest expression and not a style statement; his David is so plugged up with anger that it seems to affect the way he walks and breathes. This kind of inside-out performance is rare enough--and certainly rare in a showcase piece.

Murray believably plays the sort of buffed-up, Stallone wanna-be that the TV industry chews up and spits out, and a guy who believes he’s cleverly hid the secrets of his private life. David’s entry turns that upside-down, and Murray provides a good emotional counterweight to Handfield’s anger-on-two-legs.

After this, “Surprise, Surprise” has no theatrical surprises in store. Cheek’s Colin, a dancer cut down by an accident and confined to a wheelchair, tries to be a font of wisdom to David, but here it sounds canned and an obvious setup for the play’s unbelievable emotional turnarounds. Joan Crosby is initially cheeky as David’s “aging hippie” grandmother, but impossibly robust as she’s supposedly recuperating from a heart attack.

It’s hard to believe any of this business when Holder’s text is joking about the prospects of turning this family melodrama into a movie: Let’s start small, suggests Den, with a little production in Burbank. “Surprise, Surprise” is too thin to allow for such self-reflexive cleverness, which only serves to remind us all the more of its true showcase identity.

Fittingly, the best self-reflexive joke here is about TV. The raging Ginger-Mary Ann debate is resolved on this stage: The living Mary Ann is playing Ginger--or at least Ginger if she were on an adult cable channel.

WHERE AND WHEN

What: “Surprise, Surprise.”

Location: Victory Theatre, 3326 W. Victory Blvd., Burbank.

Hours: 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays. 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays. Ends Oct. 16.

Price: $15.

Call: (818) 841-5421.