Innocence Resurrected in ‘Forever Plaid’

Rev up your Mercury Comets--that hilarious hard-luck quartet of ‘60s crooners has been resurrected for a Southland return engagement of “Forever Plaid” at La Mirada Theatre.

In this good-natured homage to those bygone guy groups like the Four Aces and the Crew Cuts, creator-director Stuart Ross delivers a show bursting with laughs, precision harmonies and a sweet nostalgia for more innocent times.

The Plaids were tragically killed in a car wreck just before their first big gig at the Airport Hilton Fusel Lounge, but their music lives on in this “greatest comeback since Lazarus.” Gilles Chiasson, Mark Martino, Neil Nash and Stephen Wallem supply the impeccable voices for 26 peppy tunes, slow ballads and hysterical ventures into calypso and early Beatles.

The harmony extends past the musical numbers into the performances as well, as the four mesh perfectly in their endearing awkwardness and determination to make the best of their second chance.

The Plaids’ return from the dead is more than a goofy plot device--it’s an implicit reminder of something else that died amid the social turbulence of the last 31 years. For all its silly distractions and tyrannies of convention, their era was a time when things actually fit together.

* “Forever Plaid,” La Mirada Theatre, 14900 La Mirada Blvd., La Mirada. Tuesdays-Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2:30 and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Ends May 14. $28-$32. (310) 944-9801, (714) 994-6310. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.