‘Cheese’ Stays in Middle of the Process

Laurel Ollstein’s slim comedy, “Cheese,” hasn’t been properly matured like the famed products of Tillamook, Ore., where it begins. This production at the Actors’ Gang El Centro space is neither cheesy enough to be good camp nor cleverly wrought enough for farce.

Like those awful processed cheeses, this piece lingers in an odd middle ground between plastic and real cheese. The idea is there, but without the substance and texture to truly satisfy.

It’s 1975 in all its hip-hugger, bell-bottom, platform-shoes glory. Tanned, bleached-blond actress-wannabe Billie (Ilene Kristen) returns from Hollywood to her hometown of Tillamook, where cheese is not an obsession but a way of life. Her old friend Cindy (Stephanie Erb) desperately wants a child to replace the one she lost. Billie happens to be pregnant by Cindy’s husband, Griffin (Marshall McCabe), a sculptor working with cheese. Things become more complicated when Cindy falls in love with Griffin’s friend Chris (C.J. Orthal).

Flashing forward to 1991 in Beverly Hills, Billie and Chris are a high-profile Hollywood power couple with dreadful secrets.

Despite complications worthy of Jerry Springer, Brian Powell’s direction never pushes the cast entirely overboard toward camp, with one exception: Sharon Madden steals the show as Billie’s high-volume harridan of a Jewish mother, resplendent in her gaudiness.

Ollstein hasn’t fully developed her idea into a cohesive whole or taken full advantage of the time-era lapse--although costume designer Jen Diebold had great fun with the 1970s bell-bottoms and the Hollywood 1990s trashy flash.

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* “Cheese,” Actors’ Gang El Centro, 6201 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. Fridays-Sundays, 8 p.m. Ends July 25. $12. (323) 660-8587. Running time: 1 hour, 10 minutes.