Manliness Next to Silliness

The pair of guys in Kirk Pynchon’s and Jesse Dienstag’s “Mancard” at the Creative Center in North Hollywood may tout their manhood, but this late-night show of a dozen sketches constantly undermines it.

From RuPaul to “The Crying Game” to virtually every sitcom on the air, 1990s pop culture has been dominated by efforts to eat away at traditional notions of manhood, and “Mancard” is one modest effort to comment on the trend.

Pynchon and Dienstag even include a scene where our guys (Michael Vaccaro and Jon Mozenter, replacing Robert Vestal) decide against catching “Reservoir Dogs” and instead go to “The Crying Game,” convinced that Jaye Davidsonis one hot lady.

Their reaction, played out in slow-motion silence under Shana O’Neil’s direction, is pretty much the show’s highlight, a crazed moment of cardiac shock that encapsulates a whole decade obsessed with the upturning of sexual roles.

Still, this makes “Mancard” sound far more profound than it is and more assured than it should be. The pre-show at the Creative Center is loud, rowdy and frat-house-like, with the cast tossing hoops with audience members who want to practice their free throws.

Vaccaro and Mozenter start the show without much of a break from these antics, lending the illusion that they’re making this up on the spot.

It’s soon clear, though, that this is as closely scripted as when Chicagoans Pynchon and Dienstag first played it in the mid-’90s. As the “Crying Game” sketch suggests, sections of “Mancard” are already getting a tad dated.

A sketch involving an intense one-on-one basketball game is titled “Talking Trash,” a term that’s been supplanted by the hipper “running smack.” O’Neil’s firm sense of pacing can’t offset the writing’s internal problems, typified by the show’s continually bringing back a pair of nameless losers who have no clue about how to pick up women or even order drinks.

These kinds of characters, seen in so many teen movies, once seemed trend-setting but now appear stale. This satire of manliness is soon out of fresh ideas, although several bits allow the lanky-limbed Vaccaro and the natural comedian in Mozenter to strut their stuff.

A sketch showing the pair devolve from philosophy-quoters into grunting apes is lamely silly in its obviousness, but the actors give it zest.

Sometimes their directly addressing us in infomercial-style sketches is funny to hear even if we’ve heard it all before. Time has passed parts of “Mancard” by, but it still has a pulse when played by men who aren’t afraid of looking like fools in public.

“Mancard,” Creative Center, 11223 1/2 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 10 p.m. Ends June 5. $10. (818) 763-0323. Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes.