‘Muckrakers’ Gets Tangled in Jingles

William Mesnik’s “Muckrakers,” at the Fremont Centre Theatre, begins as a humorous look at musical history but gets bogged down in the maudlin personal issues of the two characters, formerly married though politically opposed musicologists.

On Angela Balogh Calin’s perfectly ultra-patriotic set, the National Trust Development Institute is sponsoring a program on presidential campaign songs at a fictional Elks Lodge. According to Mesnik’s script, political jingles mostly died with the advent of television advertisements, but once they were a vital part of campaigning.

Representing the institute is the proper and somewhat stuffy Linda (Linda Kerns), tastefully dressed in a medium-gray business suit. The guest speaker, Bill (Mesnik) arrives late in sneakers, jeans, a T-shirt and black vest, like a refugee from the ‘60s. He soon begins his loose-with-the-truth history lessons about the campaign songs, with Linda predictably protesting his dramatic exaggerations.

Kerns and Mesnik have good voices that harmonize well. Kerns also tickles the ivories, and Mesnik strums a banjo and a guitar and plays a harmonica. Some of the songs feature some muckraking moments, and Mesnik invites audience participation. While the pair’s political bickering is fun, it could be pushed a bit further by director Joel Swetow and by Mesnik as playwright. Yet the characters’ personal history eventually consumes the political history. More melodies and less melodrama would make this music lesson more harmonious.

* “Muckrakers,” Fremont Centre Theatre, 1000 Fremont Ave., South Pasadena. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3:30 p.m. Ends Nov. 12. $16. (626) 441-5977. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

Confronting AIDS in ‘Eastern Standard’

Richard Greenberg’s “Eastern Standard” has become something of a standard--trotted out for an easy-on-the-conscience social-concerns filler. In Colony Theatre Company’s initial “second stage” production at Burbank Center Stage, the play receives a respectable outing, and it fits nicely on the set for the Colony’s main show, “Dandelion Wine.”

Not as bitingly funny as Greenberg’s later plays, such as the recently closed “Everett Beekin,” this piece follows four New York yuppies through a few months of angst as they confront AIDS and homelessness.

Stephen (Darin Anthony) has been staring at and sometimes following a Wall Street businesswoman, Phoebe (Laura Wernette), whom he sees every weekday having lunch at a certain restaurant. His gay artist friend, Drew (Chad Borden), has joined him for lunch to take a peek.

Phoebe is meeting her gay brother Peter (Gil Bernardi), who discloses he has AIDS. While being served by the actress-in-waiting Ellen (Stacey Silverman), the couples steal glances until a foulmouthed homeless woman, May--played with gleeful abandon by Sandra Kinder--assaults Peter.

Stephen and Drew come to Peter’s assistance. With the ice broken, Phoebe and Stephen soon become a couple.

All the characters escape their problems at Stephen’s beach house. Stephen and Phoebe take a sabbatical from their jobs. Drew eyes Peter.

Nice guy Stephen has also invited Ellen and the now cleaned up May, a victim of poor national health care provisions that leave her unable to afford the drugs she needs to control her schizophrenia.

This idyll can’t last forever. But director John Ross Clark has made the idling bearable, though Wernette reads her lines like dramatic pronouncements until the final scenes.

* “Eastern Standard,” Colony Theatre Company at Burbank Center Stage, 555 N. 3rd St., Burbank. Tuesdays-Wednesdays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Dark Oct. 31, Nov 25-26. Ends Dec. 9. $10. (818) 558-7000. Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes.