Groundlings sputter, singe

By David C. Nichols

Dec. 12, 2003 12 AM PT

Special to The Times

Despite premature death notices, irony survives. Sure, it’s imperiled in this culture that is in constant flux between political correctness and playground ethics. But meanwhile, the Farrelly brothers grow richer, Clear Channel executives grow splenetic, and network TV programmers develop ulcers trying to please a public that wishes to have their crock and beat it too.

This conundrum affects both “Groundlings IV: The Reckoning” at the Groundling Theater and “The Bad Taste Show” at Acme Comedy Theatre, though at 180 degrees of separation.

Since 1972 the Groundlings have evolved into an improvisational institution that embraces topical savagery, and they count numerous caustic live wires among their celebrated graduates.

Appropriately, “The Reckoning” suggests a virtual home entertainment system of live wires, with alternate performers at different shows.

Under Karen Maruyama’s direction, “Reckoning’s” writer-performers are facile, tensile and familiar from past encounters. Musical fixtures Willie Etra, Greg Kanaga and Larry Treadwell furnish their usual rocking atmosphere. The trademark improvisations are proficient, with audience suggestions supplying riffs on California’s new governor (the redoubtable Kevin Ruf), faux-Shakespeare and consonant avoidance.

Ben Falcone and Jill Matson open strong as relationship gurus who are “Breaking It Down” for you. Matson’s office goddess, “Casual Pam,” is downright subtle by Groundlings standards. Jim Rash and Steve Little’s TV-focus-group spoof, “Dad’s Done It Again,” offers Maruyama’s brightest ensemble notion.

Another ensemble highlight is Hugh Davidson’s “The Game,” which recalls Neil Simon’s “Murder by Death” as remade by Matt Groening. Kevin Kirkpatrick and Larry Dorf are uninhibited, denuded runway models in “The Show Must Go On,” to Rachel Duguay’s cracked commentary. Rash’s WB Network-flavored “The Bu” merits expanding, and Melissa McCarthy remains certifiable in military-mad “Recruit.”

Though everybody’s cable-friendly capers divert, there is scant adventurous edge; the most politically incorrect notions still feel innocuous. An unnerving shortage of up-and-coming underlings is detectable, as is a surplus of opaque concepts, like the glitzy-witless train station closer. The uninitiated will roar, but devotees may reckon that “Reckoning” breaks no new Groundlings ground.

No such mainstream ease accompanies “The Bad Taste Show,” whose title is truth in advertising. Director M.D. Sweeney has assembled a Saturday late-night compendium of Acme sketches deemed too scandalous for prime time. How scandalous are they?

Very.

The fearless crew is wholly unhinged. Kristen Trucksess defies coherent description as a quadriplegic porn star in “Her Last Movie.” Liam Sullivan resembles David Hyde-Pierce gone psychotic, especially when mourning his foreskin with the folk song “Go Into the Light.”

Sullivan, Trucksess, the raucous Chris Mackenzie and the insidious Jodi Miller give wife-swapping a jaw-dropping geriatric twist in “Swinging Sixties”; Ethan Karson’s Asian slams in “Chinese Speak Out” are beyond audacious; Jeff Lewis recounts a scatological “Dinner” with stomach-churning conviction.

Miller and Lewis’ orgasmic “The Facial” is unspeakable, rivaling “The (Magnificent) Ass Show’s” posterior-faced heroine as the most retina-searing theatrical sight of 2003. Whether this live-action “Sick and Twisted Animation Festival” approach delights or disgusts will depend upon what audience members bring in with them. This is the postmillennial parody paradox of subjective taste, to which satire is no exception, no matter how suspect. Now, that’s ironic.

‘The Bad Taste Show’

Where: Acme Comedy Theatre,

135 N. La Brea Ave., L.A.

When: Saturdays, 10 p.m.

Adults only.

Ends: Jan. 31

Price: $10

Contact: (323) 525-0202

Running time: 1 hour

‘Groundlings IV: The Reckoning’

Where: Groundling Theater, 7307 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles

When: Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays,