Lightweight ‘Bingo’ Keeps Fun in Play

Just as bingo is one of the least demanding of games, the new “Bingo,” at Hermosa Beach Playhouse, is a featherweight musical. But it’s an amiable entertainment, in sometimes surprising ways.

While it has fun with the lower-middle-class culture of bingo players, it also takes pokes at the conventions of musical theater and any kind of feel-good fiction in general. Its creators--Michael Heitzman, Ilene Reid and David Holcenberg--establish a tone of self-deprecating comedy that allows everyone to laugh without making anyone feel especially picked on.

Bingo isn’t very theatrical. It involves individuals hunched over tables, peering down at flat cards, without much sense of a spotlight. “Bingo” draws in its audience with actual bingo playing twice during the evening--cards are passed out along with the programs--and with a big electronic board that reveals which numbers have been drawn in any particular round.

More important, the show focuses on three players: bingo bimbo Honey (Heather Lee), the superstitious Patsy (Mary Jo Mecca) and the short, squat and loud Vern (Wendy Worthington). Although they don’t appear to have much in common with each other, these three have been playing bingo together at St. Bartholomew’s for 15 years.

Once there was a fourth member of their group, the goody-goody Bernice (Lisa Robinson), whom we meet in intermittent flashbacks. But a blowup by Vern over a bingo card that Bernice took, when Vern thought it should have been hers, has led to Bernice’s banishment.

Now Bernice’s daughter Alison (Beth Malone), a young New York actress, shows up to try to heal the rift before her mother, who needs a blood transfusion, plays her final card.

“Bingo” doesn’t take its plot nearly as seriously as its belting. Anyone who wants to be in this show should be prepared to unveil some impressive pipes, for just about all of the characters have at least one big solo that’s supposed to blow the house down. The women of Hermosa Beach succeed admirably in this regard. Worthington, in particular, makes Vern a virtual hurricane.

There are a few musical interludes between the blowouts, the most entertaining of which is an ode by Honey to her new love and potential fifth husband. The man in question is the bingo caller himself (John Bisom), a genial guy who looks like a hayseed but, in Honey’s eyes, is a dashing “Gentleman Caller” (the name of her song, charmingly delivered by Lee).

The cockeyed, loose-limbed nature of this show is especially apparent in the first-act climax, in which budding actress Alison shows the others a sample of the role she’s understudying off-off-Broadway--Nurse Ratched in a new musical, “Cuckoo,” based on “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” Amusing on its own terms as musical theater parody, the number has nothing to do with bingo--and no one seems to mind.

One other actress struts the stage in two roles. K.T. Vogt plays Minnie, one of the bingo game administrators, and also Pearl, a player not only at St. Bart’s but also on the local community theater stage, where she just essayed Guenevere in “Camelot.”

Director Glenn Casale, working for the Civic Light Opera of South Bay Cities folks, sustains the show’s cheerfully tongue-in-cheek tone. Musical director Jeff Rizzo makes sure not only that the pacing keeps up but also that the sparks of wit within the lyrics can be heard.

* “Bingo,” Hermosa Beach Playhouse, Pier Avenue at Pacific Coast Highway. Today-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m. Ends Sunday. $35-$40. (310) 372-4477. Running time: 2 hours.

Heather Lee: Honey

Wendy Worthington: Vern

Mary Jo Mecca: Patsy

Lisa Robinson: Bernice

Beth Malone: Alison

John Bisom: Shep/Frank

K.T. Vogt: Minnie/Pearl

Written by Michael Heitzman, Ilene Reid and David Holcenberg. Directed and choreographed by Glenn Casale. Set by Robert L. Smith. Costumes by Thomas G. Marquez. Lighting by Tom Ruzika. Sound by John Feinstein. Hair and makeup by Deanne Johnson. Production stage manager Melinda Briann Elmer.