Last Chance

Theater

“Cheyenne: A Transwestern”--Don’t ask why this play works as well as it does. In her “transwestern,” playwright Liz Tuccillo inverts the macho formula of the vintage Hollywood oater, making the swaggering gunslingers female and the pouting saloon vamps male.

If that sounds like a silly high concept that could wear thin in about two minutes--it is, but it doesn’t. There’s synergy at work here.

Tuccillo and director Craig Carlisle have collaborated before, on the off-Broadway run of “Joe Fearless.” The ease of association is evident in this production, a cheerful gender-bending shoot-’em-up that is flat-out funny from start to finish.

F. Kathleen Foley

*

Hudson Mainstage Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., L.A., (310) 281-4775. Today-Friday, 8 p.m. Ends Friday. $15.

Also closing this weekend:

“Worldly Acts”--This collection of one-acts, which evolved from a collaboration between New York’s Urban Empire theater company and Francis Ford Coppola’s Zoetrope: All Story fiction magazine, closes Saturday at the Tiffany Theater, 8532 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, (310) 289-2999.

“Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”--The musical about 1920s gold-digger Lorelei Lee in a semi-staged production presented by Reprise! Broadway’s Best ends Sunday at the Freud Playhouse, 405 Hilgard Ave., Westwood, (310) 825-2101.

“Black Comedy”--Peter Shaffer’s long one-act farce, in which a dark stage means the play’s fictional lights are turned on, and vice versa, ends Sunday at International City Theatre at Center Theater, 300 E. Ocean Blvd., Long Beach, (562) 436-4610.

“Stones in His Pockets”--Marie Jones’ comedy about a small Irish town invaded by a Hollywood film crew, with Bronson Pinchot and Christopher Burns playing the 13 characters, ends Saturday at the Globe Theatres’ Old Globe Theatre, Balboa Park, San Diego, (619) 239-2255.