The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 71

Friday, February 26, 1982 Part VI 15 Cos AtijjeleB (Elmee ORANGE COUNTY STAGE BEAT ENTERTAINMENT 'BLEACHER BUMS' PLAYS NEWPORT What's doing in Orange Cniintv By NANCY WRIDE. Times Staff Writer 'A! my and Friends," an original musical revue created by and starring actress Amy Sheridan, -will close its four-week run at 8 p.m. Tuesday THEATER "A DELICATE BALANCE" (Turtle Rock Community Center. 1 Sunnyhlll Drive, Irvine). Edward Albee'i Pulitzer Prize-winning drama a itudy In psychological terror will be ataged today and Saturday, 8 p.m.

"BELL, BOOK ft CANDLE" (Grand Dinner Theater. 1 Hotel Way, Anaheim). Cyd Charliae will itar ai a modern-day witch whose beauty attract! a bevy of warlocki in romantic comedy to be ataged today and Saturday, 45 p.m.; Sunday, 7i45 p.m.; weekend matinees, 1:30 p.m.; Tuesday through Thursday, 8:15 p.m. "BLEACHER BUMS" (Newport Theatre Arta Center. 2501 Cliff Drive, Newport Beach).

Joe Mantegna'i mature, nine-innmg comedy for people watchers and baseball fans, will be staged today and Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m. "CABARET' (Elizabeth Howard's Curtain Call Dinner Theater. 690 El Camlno Real, Tustin). Popular Broadway musical set in a campy Berlin cabaret will be staged Tuesday through Friday, 8:30 p.m.: Saturday, 9 p.m.; Sunday, 1:30 and 7:30 p.m. "CARMEN" (Plummer Auditorium, Lemon Street and Chapman Avenue, Fullerton).

Fullerton Civic Light Opera will present musical set in 1820 Seville, Spain, today, Saturday and Thursday, 8:30 p.m.; Sunday, 2:30 p.m. "DEAR FRIENDS" (Auditorium. 7571 Westminster Westminster). Showcase Productions will present absorbing study of marital turbulence, when well-meaning friends try to reunite an estranged couple, today and Saturday, 8:30 p.m. "DIVISION STREET" (Newport Harbor Actors Theatre.

390 Monte Vista Newport Beach). Play will be staged today, Saturday and Thursday at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 2:30 p.m. "CREASE" (Saddleback College's Fine Arts Main Theatre. 28000 Marguerite Parkway, Mission Viejo). Broadway musical recalling the raucous antics at Rydell High School with 1950s rock 'n' roll.

Today and Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday at 3 p.m. "HANSEL AND GRETEL" (Imperial Junior High School, 1450 Schoolwood Drive, La Habra). La Habra Community Theatre will present the fairytale-turned-opera as a children's theater musical today and Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 6 p.m. "HENRY IV" (South Coast Repertory Theater's Mainstage, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa). Conspirators, clowns and kings clash on the battlefields of medieval England in drama of honor and treason to be staged Tuesday through Thursday at 8 p.m.

Please see WHA 7S DOING, Page 1 7 early years of this century are shown as bright and colorful. In "Ladyhouse Blues," the end of the teens are shown as a precursor to the Depression 10 years later, with poverty, unemployment, inflation and the added sadness of men still away at war, some of them never to come home. It's more a mood play than a story, and so the production is compelling when the mood is compelling and easy to dismiss when the mood doesn't quite make it. One of the best features at the Gem is Barbara June Dodge's portrayal of a woman dying of tuberculosis. She doesn't make it pretty; instead, she makes us hurt for her every time she coughs and get angry at her for not working harder to save her own life.

At the core of the play is the mother of the other four women, a strong, naively opinionated country woman played by Mamie Crossen. Her face is angular and hardened yet innocent, and her work on the character pays off most of the time. But the role of a woman of many quirks is a strange one. And occasionally Crossen will play an idiosyncracy too broadly or simply not be able to get a line of thinking to ring true. At the end, her grief does not envelop the audience.

Mathias Reitz's direction is mostly graceful, aided by the lighting by Liz Stilwell and Laura Stowe's dingy but expansive a large room suggesting an era rather than a particular apartment. The play continues at the Gem Theatre, 12852 Main Garden Grove, 636-7213, Wednesdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 7:30 p.m. through March 13. on the Brea CivicCultural Center's stage.

The Cabaret Repertory Theatre production is one of three shows rotating in repertory at the Dr. Glenn Curtis Performing Arts Theatre, located in the Brea center. The other two shows are Neil Simon's comedy, "Last of the Red Hot Lovers" and the 1867 musical melodrama, "Under the Gaslight." Such Broadway fare as "As Long as He Needs Me" from "Shall We Dance?" from "The King and and "What Is a Woman?" from "I Do! I Do!" will be sung by Amy and fellow performers Cherie L. Brown, Eileen Sheridan and Shelby Grimm. Each of Amy's "friends" will bring to the show his or her favorite musical idiom: pop, folk, country and western and oldies but goodies.

Included in the CRT admission price are hot mulled wine, spiced cider and a popular "cabaret" dessert served at intermission. All seating is reserved, with tickets priced at $5. Other Orange County events: By SONDRA LOWELL Lots of little character sketches are what make "Bleacher Bums" pay off. A slob who spills a milk shake all over himself is an attention-getter, undeniably, and a wild-eyed, self-styled cheerleader is barely less noticeable. People reveal themselves, and some even change in the course of this "nine inning comedy" by Joe Mantegna at the Newport Theater Arts Center.

Under Patricia Terry's direction, there's plenty of zest, the kind you would expect from true baseball fans. The ballpark regulars are interesting individuals yet there's a level missing somewhere in the way they connect with each other, a spark of reality that would give depth to the zest. The most natural performance is by Rob Klimovich as the slob. He's relaxed enough to have fun with the role. Most of the other performers hover at the verge of reality, a position unsure for both actors and audience.

For example, Chuck Cooper's openness is almost but not quite believable, and Sorrell Wayne's likability is overshadowed by her attention to the New York accent. Group rooting scenes need a little loosening up. Still, this lone one-act in which the characters get a seventh-inning stretch but the audience doesn't has a light, happy appeal for people who like baseball and for people who don't. The show is at Newport Theatre Arts Center, 2501 Cliff Drive, Newport Beach, 675-3143, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m.

through March 13. 'A DELICATE BALANCE' IN IRVINE With "A Delicate Balance," Edward Albee veers between comedy and allegory. At the Irvin' Community Theater, under Eileen Fishbach's direction, it's the comedy that's most easily appreciated, the shorter speeches about more understandable occurrences such as a 33-year-old child coming home after the end of her fourth marriage and the friends moving in without warning, because they have become suddenly terrified in their own home. Most of the comedy falls to Valerie Mcllroy as the acerbic, accordian-playing alcoholic, and she knows just how to handle it. As her more formal sister, Jane Nigh is also acerbic, but many of the philosophical lines come her way, and she doesn't overcome the difficulty of their weightiness.

As Nigh's husband. Art Winslow handles all his dialogue in a droning, unemotional tone that doesn't service either of the play's styles. As one of the frightened neighbors, Betty Young is charmingly wry. Richard Drake is quite the sort of man who would be married to that sort of woman. Corbett Barklie is enough of a brat as the grown child, but is less convincing in the moments of high emotion.

The play continues at the Irvine Community Theater, Turtle Rock Park, Irvine, 557-7297, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 and Sundays at 2 p.m. through March 6. 'LADYHOUSE BLUES' AT THE GEM Kevin O'Morrison's "Ladyhouse Blues" at the Gem Theatre in Garden Grove is something of a sadder version of the entrance to Disneyland. At Disneyland, the )t it 11 II 1( I II It II fiarleaumB CP row Dinner Playhouse presents sS 795 10 HIGH SCHOOLS TO PERFORM IN COLLEGE THEATER FESTIVAL Ten high schools from Orange, Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties will perform in Cypress College's second annual high school theater festival starting Wednesday. All performances in the nine-day event will begin at 8 p.m.

in the college theater. The opener will be the Artesia High School entry, "Unhealthy to Be Unkind." Anaheim High School will stage "Rebel Without a Cause "on Thursda Other participants will include Placentia's El Dorado High School, "Oklahoma!" (next Friday); Anaheim's Katella High School, "The Member of the Wedding" (March 6), and Los Alamitos High School, also "Oklahoma!" (March 8). Also, Corona del Mar High School, "Butterflies Are Free" (March 9); Anaheim Union High School Districts gifted program students, "Harvey" (March 11), and Newport Harbor High School, "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds" (also March 11). The others will be Ocean View High School of Huntington Beach, "Applause" (March 12) and Chino High School, "Damn Yankees" (March 13). General admission will be $3.

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