THEATER REVIEWS : ‘Mission Implazable’ Misses Some Obvious Targets : The parody takes a few good shots at Ventura County politics and history, but ultimately bogs down and loses its focus.

Political satire is rare in contemporary theater; rarer still on a local level. Which is one reason that “Live at the Livery” was such an exciting prospect when it debuted a few years back.

Once a semi-revered institution that played at lunchtime in the Old Town Livery courtyard, “Live at the Livery” has moved to prime time: weekend evenings in the Plaza Players Theater. The Performance Studio (now as then) produces the show.

There’s plenty about Ventura worthy of parody, and the current presentation, “Mission Implazable; Que Serra Sera”--written by Rick French and director Sandra Wilusz--starts promisingly as a group of Chumash gather at the mouth of the Ventura River to observe annual floods washing encamped recreational vehicles to sea.

From there on, things get pretty diffuse, gathering scattered laughs while missing many obvious targets--not even aiming at them, in fact.

The script instead gets bogged down in the group’s version of Ventura’s early history, in which the local slow-growth Chumash are beset by factions of Spaniards led by Father Serra and conquistador Don Filipe, and by a tribe of clowns (in full red hair and oversized shoes) encamped at Point Mugu.

As becomes clear much later, the point is to explain how so many clowns came to be involved in city government. Better they should have stuck with the Spaniards. Father Serra, just up from Orange County, is interested in land development--his dream is to build a mission, abutted by a bell tower and mini mall. In the meantime, Don Filipe wants to establish a military government. Concurrently, Chumash youth Racing Cougar has fallen in love with a comely clown named Little Swan Dive.

The Spaniards and Chumash angle seems inspired by an old Firesign Theatre routine and would have been far sharper without the intrusive subplot. Besides, perhaps in an attempt not to be too obscure, the script fails to identify, caricature and deflate many of the clowns in contemporary government, let alone address many current issues (separation of garbage for recycling gets touched on, as does building a baseball stadium without having a team to play on it).

For old-timers, one of the funniest gags may be the systematic reduction of the hillside forest known to the Chumash as “Twenty-Two Trees” and now called “Two Trees.”

The acting is of variable quality (were those dropped lines on Friday night, or pauses for unheard laughter?) but Dawn Shreer is notable as the sort-of narrator, as are Bob Allenbaugh as the Chumash’s surfer chief, Richard Goad as Father Serra and John Wilusz as Don Filipe.

Tom Flores and Laura Schmude are appealing as Racing Cougar and Little Swan Dive. Though the show would be better without that particular story line, it’s not their fault.

Details

* WHAT: “Mission Implazable; Que Serra Sera.”

* WHEN: Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m.

* WHERE: Plaza Players Theater, 34 N. Palm St. (in the Livery Arts Center), Ventura.

* HOW MUCH: $10.

* CALL: For reservations or information, 643-9460.