‘The Secret’ Delivers a Lot of Comedy Despite Serious Nature

Tina Pompeii is a nervous wreck in the waiting room of an abortion clinic in Brooklyn. She’s also sick. Her food cravings are unbearable. Her older sister Angela is unbearable too. Angela thinks Tina should tell Sonny, Tina’s boyfriend, that she’s pregnant.

Are we in for a tract against abortion? Only minimally. Although Lisa Maria Radano’s “The Secret Sits in the Middle,” at the 3rd Street Theatre, spends a lot of time talking about abortion, it looks as if this couple is one who should have a baby. Eventually, Tina’s reasons for ending her pregnancy hardly impress even her.

What we’re really in for is some solid-gold comedy writing, at least in the first act. Radano has a flair for pulling the unexpected twist of a phrase out of a character naturally and effortlessly. What she doesn’t have is a finished play.

There’s not a flaw in the first act, which ends with Sonny’s discovering the secret, but Act II, though it’s full of delightful whimsy, hardly has the comic power of Act I and dissipates the original thrust by wandering off in odd tangents.

The cast, under Amy Glazer’s purposefully frenetic direction, is super. Patricia Heaton as up-tight Tina, Marcy K. Ross as her wiser spinster sister and Michael A. Nickles as proud papa Sonny speak Radano’s dialogue with unaffected sincerity, which is exactly what makes it hysterical.

Jack Slater is a gentle delight as the whimsical Mr. Runey, whose advice might change Tina’s mind, but Act II needs reconstruction and development before Runey looks as though he belongs in the play. Susan Ann Connor makes a brief appearance as an anti-abortion shill who tries to convince Tina how cute fetuses are. She is a tract in herself, but she’s soon forgotten in the laughter.

At 8142 West 3rd St.; Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; ends March 24. Tickets: $8-$10; (213) 466-1767. Stephen King’s ‘Rage’: Thriller in Santa Monica

When he was 19, guru of the grotesque Stephen King wrote a novella about a high school misfit who killed his teacher and held his class hostage at gunpoint in the classroom. Robert B. Parker (“Spenser: For Hire”) and his wife Joan have adapted “Rage” for the stage, and it turns out to be a dandy little thriller, containing early indications of King’s talent for lighting up the shadows inside the human subconscious.

But this local premiere of the play, at Santa Monica Playhouse, barely meets King halfway.

Charlie Decker isn’t alone in his rage. His student prisoners are torn by the same anger and most of them know what he’s about. One, a nerd of a girl, is allowed to go to the restroom and, instead of escaping, returns to join in Charlie’s “getting it on.” Underneath, they’re on his wavelength.

Outside of Daniel Parker (the adapters’ son) as Charlie, who has a deceivingly placid smile hiding twisted hatred, the cast barely looks closely at their characters, and the direction by Chris DeCarlo and Evelyn Rudie hasn’t wound the tension tight enough to make the piece as threatening or gripping as it could be. James Cooper’s lighting is as intricate and startling as the rest of the production should be.

At 1211 4th St., Santa Monica; Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 8 p.m.; Fridays, 10:30 p.m.; ends May 6. Tickets: $15; (213) 394-9779. Family Anger Surfaces in ‘Vikings’ at Powerhouse

There’s a lot of long-suffered anger behind the surface bonding of the three generations of Larsen men in Stephen Metcalfe’s “Vikings.” That’s the strength of the play, the sharp edge under the Larsens’ Nordic cool.

Under the minimalist direction of Cedric Winchell at the Powerhouse, none of that tension comes through. Maybe it would through the close eye of a camera, but on stage it barely gets to the other side of the kitchen table where much of the action takes place--never as far as the audience.

Al Hansen makes the strongest impression as the grandfather, who’s sage and often poetic even in the gnawing unfairness of his cancerous decline. As his son, still mourning his wife who also died of cancer, John Reger acts a lot but never gets under Peter’s skin.

The grandson, who should be angriest of them all while he’s fighting for his own identity, is more Cleaver than Larsen in Eric Stromer’s performance. Sachi Parker as the grandfather’s nurse, who’s had her eye on Peter since high school, matches Hansen’s attempt to find some energy and intricacy in their scenes.

Although Lisa Thompson’s costumes are fine, Sharon Rosen’s lighting and Gary Cotter’s setting are as minimal as Winchell’s direction.

At 3116 2nd St., Santa Monica; Thursdays through Sundays, 8 p.m.; ends March 18. Tickets: $15; (213) 466-1767. ‘Hollywood Follies’ Lacks Nostalgic Touch

Why aren’t revues done much these days? Maybe because the mind-set that created the form and made revues a popular theatrical staple of the 1920s through 1940s has disappeared. It’s a specialized idiom. David Man hasn’t brought back any of the magic in his “Hollywood Follies” at the Victory Theatre.

There are some pleasant songs (Man wrote the lyrics, music variously by Stanley D. Hoffman, Michael Urbaniak, Aaron Egigian and Robert Bendorff), such as the lilting “The Good Stuff,” and some clever comedy bits, such as Jennifer Butt’s brittle, acerbic casting director in a running gag.

But most of the material is old hat (a Polish tango teacher in a black cape) and some of it is in bad taste, including comic references to Katharine Hepburn’s affliction, Judy Garland’s sad decline and Peggy Lee’s medication. The latter unfortunately emerges in one of the show’s funnier numbers, a send-up of a somnambulant Lee and a raspingly vicious Yma Sumac.

Man still thinks male transvestism is good for a few laughs, and homosexual leading men in Hollywood a hoot, and imagines Michael Jackson’s plastic surgery turning him into--are you ready?--Diana Ross.

There are good performances, topped by Marion Ramsey and Peter Marc, particularly in the comic and sultry “Born Blonde,” but the ensemble doesn’t really have much to work with.

At 3326 Victory Blvd., Burbank; Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m.; indefinitely. Tickets: $15-$17; (818) 841-5421.