Muscles Tempered by Humor

Meet “The Tweaksters”: two quirky performers with six-pack abs of steel, dancers’ grace and a penchant for flowerpots, black light and heavy lifting.

Never mind the sound system that went out at this dynamic duo’s opening matinee Sunday at the Miles Memorial Playhouse or the theater’s limited headroom and backstage area, which made for wary hoop tosses and peek-a-boo costume and prop changes.

Otherwise known as Regan Patno and Julia Snyder, the Tweak- sters rarely lost the “ooh-ahh” factor in their acrobatic, balletic, family-friendly feats of strength and balance.

Patno and Snyder set the show’s whimsical tone with their opening vignette: a comical, G-rated black-light strip ease routine, their bodies visible only as outlines of light until the sight-gag payoff.

A zany “robot” segment is another giggle as they add humor to their tightly choreographed “mechanical” movements with head-to-head combat involving Velcro balls and caps.

Then, muscles rippling, they make heavy-duty ropes hung with weighty “meteors” look like spinning batons, swinging them at high speed as Snyder balances on Patno’s shoulders--keeping an eye out for the lights not far overhead.

Plastic flowerpots become percussive instruments and eccentric objects for quick stacking, and in solo spots, Snyder strikes a lyrical note, twirling long banners and ribbons and shifting rhythms as she swirls a colorful cape to a mambo beat. Patno goes solo too, defying gravity with some pole work and, while juggling, beating a drum and tapping out a medley of pop tunes on a xylophone.

The most striking vignette takes place in the dark. The performers stretch lighted wires across the stage and manipulate them into mesmerizing waves and loops.

Missing at the opening show, when the main music system fizzled halfway through and Patno had to call out music cues to a technician, was a connecting energy between the pieces.

It’s doubtful that the audience noticed, especially when Patno levitated pingpong balls over tubes of air or when the pair’s industrial-sized “Pong Shooter” sent balls flying into the audience.

This juggling, balancing, object-manipulating, off-the-wall duo is captivating fun even when technical glitches jog the rhythm.

“The Tweaksters,” Miles Memorial Playhouse, 1130 Lincoln Blvd., Santa Monica, Sundays at 4 p.m. through Aug. 25. $5-$6. (310) 394-4964.