Who’s the cat, who’s the mouse?

By now Anthony Shaffer’s 1970 murder-mystery twist-fest “Sleuth” has become as much a period piece as the quaint English detective novels it set out to tweak. We’re unlikely to be thunderstruck either by the play’s mild class critique or its mountingly elaborate fake-outs.

In a handsome revival at the Falcon Theatre, director Michael Michetti raises the bar ever so slightly, heightening the play’s virtual clash of civilizations and making a lively spectacle of the sparks that fly, even when the turns of the plot grind their gears.

In the champion’s corner is successful author Andrew Wyke (Mark Capri), who sits alone in an overstuffed country house (a perfectly overstated set by Tom Buderwitz) and types formulaic gentlemen’s mysteries while wearing tuxedo pants and a smoking jacket while nursing a glass of Scotch.

Enter the challenger, Milo Tindle (Elijah Alexander), the half-Italian, half-Jewish cockney upstart who’s been shagging Wyke’s estranged wife, in a powder-blue suit of a mystery material, its legs cut only slightly wider than the lapels (the dead-on costumes are by Scott A. Lane). For all his attempts to be polite and drawing room-ready, Tindle has the sort of slicked-back, hirsute Mediterranean manhood that makes him look like he’ll need another shave by play’s end. No wonder he provokes the Noel Coward-ly Wyke to distraction.

The self-consciously preposterous cat-and-mouse game that ensues can still delight those who know the play or its crackling 1972 film version. Michetti’s intent, straight-faced production and his prodigious performers provide enough human contours -- enough mystery, even -- to keep us smiling, if not quite guessing.

-- Rob Kendt

“Sleuth,” the Falcon Theatre, 4252 Riverside Drive, Burbank. 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 4 p.m. Sundays. Ends April 24. $25 to $37.50. (818) 955-8101. Running time: 2 hours.

*

Stellar cast, unformed drama

Noteworthy talent abounds in “Questa” at the Court Theatre. Victor Bumbalo’s poetic morality play about the wages of self-denial receives the kind of small-theater showcase that commercial houses cannot afford. It also has lingering birth pangs.

Shuttling between the West Village and Jersey City, “Questa” concerns the spiritual effect and complexity of homophobia, internalized and otherwise. Evan A. Bartoletti’s typically masterful set begins its cinematic slide, Steve Goodie’s original music fades, and “Questa” opens at the apartment of Susan (Alexandra Lydon). Paul (Michael Hagerty), her brother and “Questa’s” antihero, arrives, inchoate and bloody, having just killed the stranger who mocked him outside a gay club.

They hide this from Susan’s husband, Nicholas (Tom O’Keefe), whose best friend was Paul’s deceased life partner. Dan Weingarten’s lighting introduces the victim’s mother, hairdresser Lori (the ever-incisive Wendie Malick), who vents her anguish on Father James (Dan Lauria), her illicit lover.

Under Joe Cacaci’s direction, “Questa” has smart intent. Concealing his identity, guilt-ridden Paul befriends Lori. Her unearthed prejudices surface, to the dismay of employer Richard (Bruce Nozick). Observing it all is homeless Daniel (a potent Dorian Harewood), who saw the murder and now stalks Paul.

Ultimately, the crafty designs and some fierce acting (with an alternate cast on Sundays) betray the lack of unity between “Questa’s” episodic form and uneven content. The Act 1 vignettes slow the pace, which the more-stylized Act 2 must retrieve. The overloaded ideology implodes, and some passive turns of plot leave Lydon, Nozick and O’Keefe unfinished, Lauria’s arbitrary cleric misused. Bumbalo will surely keep revising, but “Questa” is not yet coherent drama.

-- David C. Nichols

“Questa,” Court Theatre, 722 N. La Cienega Blvd., West Hollywood. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays, 8 p.m. next Thursday. Ends May 15. $25. (800) 595-4849 or www.tix.com. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.

*

‘Mexicans’ in Intimate setting

As a showcase for the Luckman Fine Arts Complex’s well-appointed new Intimate Theatre, “They Shoot Mexicans, Don’t They?” is a veritable multimedia smorgasbord, with exquisite live music by Quetzal Flores’ five-piece band, original black-and-white film clips and loving simulations by Isaac and Judith Artenstein, sinuous dances choreographed by Francisco Martinez and Jose Lopez’s gorgeous lighting designs across Victoria Petrovich’s movable set pieces.

As theater, though, “They Shoot Mexicans” is scattered and flimsy. Theresa Chavez and Rose Portillo’s text ostensibly sets out to interrogate early Hollywood’s simplified representations of California’s rich Mexican past, and of exotic “Latins” in general, from Rudolph Valentino to Dolores Del Rio. A sarcastic film historian (Portillo) is on hand to help us notice and deplore the mile-wide screen stereotypes in some tantalizing vintage footage.

The critique doesn’t go much deeper than that, alas. In the play’s main story, set in the 1920s, a well-meaning Anglo producer (Michael Manuel) turns up at the Ramirez Dance Studio, eager to make a film of “The Mission Play,” the troupe’s long-running hagiography of Father Junipero Serra. Is this the chance choreographer Paul (Manuel) has been waiting for, to liven up the steps his Maestra (Ramirez) insists must remain unchanged for all time? Is it the big break for bubbly, movie-mad young Gloria (Portillo)?

It’s hard to care, given the production’s low dramatic stakes, long musical interludes and the creaky two-actor conceit, handled indifferently by director Chavez. What’s the point of using multimedia with a message as flat as a textbook?

-- Rob Kendt

“They Shoot Mexicans, Don’t They?” About Productions at the Luckman Intimate Theatre, Luckman Fine Arts Complex, Cal State L.A. 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday. Ends Saturday. $40. (323) 343-6600. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.

*

Lunchtime fare heavy on the corn

Downtown denizens and hungry tourists can check out TheatrExpresso’s “A Suthern Proposal,” the lunch-theater diversion playing Thursdays at the Pacific Center.

Conceived by local attorney-author George Shohet, it offers a prix-fixe meal, relaxed atmosphere and a 22-minute play. Conversation and classical music wafts about the tables placed in hotel-ballroom formation around Dan Jenkins’ faded-velour set. Service is friendly, food catered from Rosie’s BBQ Gallery is zesty. Plates clear, a coffee and cookie bar opens, and Shohet’s riff on Anton Chekhov’s “The Marriage Proposal” ambles in under Ian Jensen’s lank direction. Here, things get dicey.

The tearoom ease and gourmet fare are tastier than the inaugural show, which chicken-fries Chekhov in Hazzard County corn oil. Stetson-wearing Jonathan Kehoe plays hypochondriac Edgar Teetwell III, fixed on marryin’ nubile neighbor Natalie Jo Butts (Stacie Wengryn). He informs her pappy, Stuart Earl Butts (Craig Braun), who is “giddier than a tree rat at a goober pea farm” at the news. Edgar and Natalie Jo erupt over the ownership of Duck Puddin’ Meadow and the assets of her dog, Melons, versus his hound, Jacques.

Such lowbrow hokum gets snickers; many lodge-show sketches with agile actors do. Shohet has other plays prepared. He should get them up quickly while contacting various writers’ labs, some located in the venue’s vicinity, if this larky notion is to thrive.

-- D.C.N.

“A Suthern Proposal,” TheatrExpresso at Pacific Center, 523 W. 6th St., L.A. Noon and 1:15 p.m. Thursdays. Ends May 5. $10-$15. Prix-fixe lunch $8, book in advance. (310) 452-5567 or www.theatrexpresso.com. Running time: 1 hour.