A Great Team: Laughs and Looks

We expect sex appeal from performers. But from comics, we subconsciously expect something other than sexiness--perhaps the opposite, even. Comics get added mileage, and some helpful vulnerability, from looking like the rest of us; it’s the rare person, such as Lucille Ball, who is actually funny and beautiful.

That’s what makes HBO’s “Sex and the City” such a comedy standout: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall and the gang of Gotham single gals combine allure and laughs as if it were a long-standing tradition. Playing off this angle, L.A. Connection’s “Sketch in the City” travels down sexual highways and byways with perhaps the most attractive ensemble that director Kent Skov’s comedy theater has ever assembled.

A good indicator is the opener, a sharp spoof of “Hey, Big Spender,” which not only shows off three of the cast’s five women (Senoa Keefe, Alaine Kashian, Heather Provost), balancing what’s often a male-dominated group, but also makes a small nod to “The Full Monty” (care of Joel Bryant, Steve Prince, Cedric Yarbrough and Hal Rudnick).

Yes, there are the Connection’s signature voice-over spoofs of movie dialogue (the three here are repeats from past shows). But the emphasis is on fresh material, and there are some clever moments along the way that veer from the kinky to the campy-romantic.

In the former department, a goofy bit involves two women (Provost and Robyn Simms) on a nude beach who encounter a strange man (Rudnick) who’s fully covered from head to toe and claims he was born without skin. But it’s just a ruse for him to ogle women on the beach. Another sketch has two straight guys (Bryant and Gregg Spillman) waking up in bed together and desperately trying to work up excuses for why they’re there.

Romance is mercilessly skewered throughout, but from a varied set of angles. A dinner date between two seemingly pro-environmental young people (Bryant and Deven Green) turns outrageously bad when she isn’t quite the pacifist he is. The trite truism--if you love someone enough, set them free and they’ll come back to you if it was meant to be--is cleverly worked over in a dark sketch abetted by the voice-over of Yarbrough, who elsewhere delivers a pinpoint impersonation of singer Aaron Neville. Josh Minnick,in a sketch whose title “Pavlovian Machismo” says it all, delivers a comic-nightmare portrait of the male pig at his worst, but with a twist.

The evening’s best and silliest moment is “Tony & the Countess,” in which Simms and Brett Kucera play unlikely serenading lovers on a cruise ship in the ‘30s. The catch is that Simms plays the singing Countess with her body covered in black cloth, her back arched with her head upside down, so that her exposed mouth and chin become the Countess’ “face” under which is a tiny, dainty evening dress. It’s the kind of visually startling effect that shows off small theater at its most imaginative.

Although some sketches have nothing to do with sex--a lengthy, fully developed scene written by Yarbrough and titled “Sorry About That” is about twisted minds and public ridicule that’s better than 90% of what appears these days on “Saturday Night Live”--there’s an overall sexiness to the show that you don’t expect from a company of goofballs. Comedy isn’t pretty? Not always.

BE THERE

“Sketch in the City,” L.A. Connection Comedy Theatre, 13442 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks. Fridays, 7:45 p.m. Ends May 18. $10. (818) 784-1868. Running time: 1 hour, 25 minutes.