All’s Well Enough in British Sex Farce ‘Out of Order’

Attention, fans of that silly genre, the British sex farce: “Out of Order,” at El Portal Center, is straight from the source. Ray Cooney, one of the form’s acknowledged masters, is the director and co-star as well as the playwright.

The genre is seldom represented on L.A.’s major stages, and almost never with someone of Cooney’s experience at the helm. His writing credits include the likes of “Run for Your Wife,” “Not Now Darling,” “Move Over, Mrs. Markham” (with John Chapman), “Wife Begins at 40” and “Funny Money.” El Portal has promised to import more of Cooney’s oeuvre.

Speaking to the audience from the stage following the opening-night performance, Cooney remarked: “If anyone here has received a message in this play, please let us know.” Presumably, Cooney would try hard to remove any such stain from his work.

In other words, the genre is all style, no substance. The basic ingredients are a cast of stock comic types and several easily slammed doors, to which--in this case--Cooney added an easily slammed window. The characters go through a wringer of embarrassing situations, many of them sexually suggestive, almost all of them involving a quickly concocted cover-up. The goal appears to be to pack in as many plot twists as possible before the audience grows weary of following along.

Paradoxically, all of this fictional disorder must be very rigorously ordered. Stumble over a line, pause too long, and the machinery begins to break down quickly.

El Portal’s “Out of Order” is hardly out of order, but neither was it operating at its maximum potential at Saturday’s opening. Light laughter was abundant, but irrepressible aisle-rolling wasn’t.

Most of the performances are assured, including those of Cooney, British veterans Ian Abercrombie and Anne Rogers, the American TV star and farceur Robert Mandan and several lesser-known young Americans.

But Kenneth Danziger hasn’t mastered the pivotal role of Richard Willey, a slippery politician who has decided to dally with the Prime Minister’s personal secretary in a room at the Westminster Hotel--on the same evening as a heated parliamentary debate. Danziger’s performance was about 75% on opening night; the others’ were closer to 95%. Incidentally, in one line that has been added since the play’s premiere 10 years ago, Cooney compares Willey to our own Bill Clinton.

Danziger’s character isn’t quite as prominent in the second act, when more of the attention shifts to Willey’s right-hand man, George Pidgen, played by Cooney. A slight, owlish bachelor and mama’s boy, with dark-rimmed glasses and a constant air of anxiety, Pidgen is forced to declare passionate attraction to two different women within about 10 minutes of each other. Cooney’s performance is shtick-laden, but though the character is insecure, the actor is not.

For young Americans who remember Abercrombie only as Mr. Pitt in “Seinfeld,” his performance here will be a revelation. He plays a crafty and far-from-aristocratic bellman at the hotel, whose willingness to oblige his customers--for the right tip--will soon make him wealthy enough to hobnob with the aristocrats himself. Abercrombie has a clown’s mug, which he uses well. He winds up in drag.

As the unctuous hotel manager, Mandan oozes eyebrow-raising innuendo. Rogers is briskly commanding as Willey’s wife.

Natalie Denise Sperl looks fetching as Willey’s amour, and David Clayberg rants and cries up a storm as her jealous hubby. As the private nurse of Pidgen’s housebound mum, Kristin Kay shifts gears convincingly from stern tsk-tsking to gleeful abandon. In ritualistic fashion, two of these younger characters briefly drop towels, exposing their rear ends.

Finally, we can’t forget Dan Forrest’s nimble performance as A Body, about whom more cannot be said without giving away too much of the plot--which, in this play, is the engine that makes everything run.

* “Out of Order,” El Portal Center for the Arts, 5269 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 7 p.m.; Thursdays and Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 4 and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 and 7 p.m. Ends May 20. $30-$45. (800) 233-3123. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.

Ray Cooney: George Pidgen

Kenneth Danziger: Richard Willey

Natalie Denise Sperl: Jane Worthington

Robert Mandan: The Manager

Ian Abercrombie: The Waiter

Dan Forrest: A Body

David Clayberg: Ronnie

Anne Rogers: Pamela

Kristin Kay: Gladys

Written and directed by Ray Cooney. Set by Douglas Heap. Costumes by Cathy Crane-McCoy. Lighting by James Moody. Production stage manager Dana Craig.