‘Legs’: A Pleasant Shades-of-Sitcom Romp

If playwrights dream of backers, then why can’t prosperous gangsters dream of opening nights? They do in “Breaking Legs,” the mobster-impresario comedy by Tom Dulack now at the Pasadena Playhouse.

A cousin to “Bullets Over Broadway,” “Breaking Legs” came first, having its premiere at the Old Globe in 1989. Here’s the situation: Buoyed by his play’s success in Belgium, an English professor (James DeMarse) decides to try the big time: Off Off Broadway. He finds backers in Lou, Tino and Mike, three guys with pinkie rings and neck chains, guys who love pasta fagioli and who solemnly cross themselves whenever someone mentions a deceased person whose sudden demise they seem to know an awful lot about.

“Breaking Legs” ran Off Broadway for more than a year. It is a broad popular comedy of the type that Muriel Resnik and Murray Schisgal used to supply for Broadway audiences before sitcoms perfected the job of feeding the country its diet of pleasant no-brainers. The playwright directs a smooth and straightforward production.

“Breaking Legs” delivers the minimal message: We--teachers or gangsters all--are not that far apart. No one will come for more of a message than that and no one will leave with one. The audience will exit sitcom-fulfilled, and with a distinct urge for veal and peppers.

* “Breaking Legs,” The Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena, Tuesday-Friday, 8 p.m., Saturday, 5 and 9 p.m., Sunday,2 and 7 p.m. Ends April 23. $33.50. (800) 233-3123. Running time: 2 hours.