‘Play On’ Plays Up ‘Foul’ Humor

The last decade and a half has seen a rash of plays poking fun at amateur or third-rate theatrical companies. The best is “Noises Off,” which frequently is revived. Further down the scale is Rick Abbott’s “Play On!”

The difference between the plays is that “Noises Off” looks at some very human, sometimes poignant, often kinky personal relationships that develop and blossom while the incompetence is unreeling on stage.

Abbott (a pseudonym for the late playwright Jack Sharkey) depended entirely on the incompetence. There is little mention of what goes on between the actors when they’re not on stage (presenting a mock mystery called “Murder Most Foul”) and what mention there is can be dismissed as inconsequential. The humor in this one-joke script is based on missed cues, misunderstanding of lines, and words in the script.

Which isn’t to say that the show doesn’t have honestly earned laughs. It just doesn’t have a solid base for its humor.

And Abbott does stretch the incompetence a bit. The actors don’t know their lines three days before dress rehearsal (ha-ha) because the amateur playwright keeps making illogical revisions. During that dress rehearsal, the playwright erases the sound tape (ha-ha) and walks around the stage before the play begins, cheerily greeting her friends in the audience. Not even with the worst church-basement amateur group would do this.

At the Long Beach Playhouse, director Jeff Paul does his best with the script and has a mostly capable cast. When they’re not acting in the play-within-the-play, the actors give forthright and realistic performances as the put-upon company. Paul does err, though, in having them go overboard with their caricatured bad acting in the corny mystery, with eccentric, outlandish movements and too-stilted readings.

Sean B. O’Donnell stands out sharply with a well-tuned comic flair that makes up for some of his minor excesses; he gets the biggest laughs of the evening. Lance Evans is very good as the stereotypically randy juvenile, and Sue M. Heaton shines as the aggressive, macho stage manager who can’t seem to find a cue and doesn’t seem to care.

Good performances in the few offstage moments are given especially by Vera Woods as the bimbotic ingenue and by Joyce Hackett and Rowland Kerr as the company’s character actors. The other cast members give standard, by-the-book readings that neither hinder nor help the proceedings, except for Renee Oran as the dumb playwright, whose performance throughout is on the same corny, overblown level as the characters in “Murder Most Foul.”

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* “Play On!,” Long Beach Playhouse Mainstage, 5021 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Dec. 8 at 2 p.m. Ends Dec. 14. $10-$15. (310) 494-1616. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.

Sue M. Heaton: Aggie

Vera Woods: Violet

Lance Evans: Billy

Joyce Hackett: Polly

Rowland Kerr: Henry

Sean B. O’Donnell: Saul

Renee Oran: Phyllis Montague

A Long Beach Playhouse production of a comedy by Rick Abbott, directed by Jeff Paul. Scenic design: Alexander N. Angelos. Costume design: Donna Fritsche. Lighting design: Chad and Teri Brook. Sound design: Matthew T. Gitkin. Stage manager: Andrea C. Robbins.