‘Faces of Love’ Has Lines but Lacks Drama

“Faces of Love,” comedy writer Sol Saks’ four one-acts at Theatre West, has an impressive roster of industry veterans as well as promising newcomers, all of whose determined buoyancy can’t keep Saks’ leaden conceit afloat.

Saks (creator of “Bewitched”) demonstrates a good ear for dialogue and one-liners but tends to sacrifice dramatic cohesion to situational whim, allowing his characters to behave with unmotivated falseness as an excuse for sending his stories off in an “unexpected” direction.

For example, the sweetly romantic tone of the evening’s opener goes sour in a jarringly nasty ending, and the capriciously plotted third play, about a paranoid white supremacist’s relationship with a black cleaning woman (the wonderfully dry April Grace), never lets us in on why this apparently sensible female doesn’t flee screaming into the streets within seconds of meeting such a nut-job.

In the predictable but amusing second offering, classic character actor Marvin Kaplan holds a pitiable fascination as a desperate actor auditioning for the role of a frozen dead man--in Palmdale, no less. Andrew Parks is drolly self-important as the temperamental director.

The manipulatively sentimental but well-acted finale concerns an old man (Philip Abbott) who is helping his terminally ill wife (Jeanne Bates) commit suicide. Director Terry Becker coaxes some solid performances en route, but Saks’ dramatic shortcuts prove a fool’s errand.

* “Faces of Love,” Theatre West, 3333 Cahuenga Blvd. West. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends Nov. 17. $15. (213) 851-7977. Running time: 2 hours.