'WHERE'S POPPA?' ALSO IN SEARCH OF HUMOR, ZING PLAY FALLS FLAT, LACKS STRENGTH OF FILM.

Byline: Evan Henerson

Theater Critic

'Where's Poppa?" begins with a corpse being accidentally lit on fire. The play proceeds, a few choice moments later, to a grown man wearing a gorilla suit removing the metal barricade that traps his aged mother in her bedroom and charging in the door with the aim of frightening her into a heart attack.

The plan, alas, doesn't work. "Such a good boy!" Momma Horcheiser says to her unmasked son, Gordon, who then goes to make her breakfast of Pepsi poured over Lucky Charms.

Please try to control your convulsions. It shouldn't be hard.

There are several moments that Robert Klane lifts directly from his screenplay of "Where's Poppa" and, in all likelihood, from his novel as well. The 1970 Carl Reiner-

directed film of "Where's Poppa?" is sick, cracked and dementedly funny. You don't simply want to see Ruth Gordon's Momma dispatched; you're practically willing to enlist as beleaguered Gordon's (George Segal) accomplice.

The play doesn't ask for that kind -- or any other -- kind of investment. Its over-the-top antics feel borrowed or stale, and its characters are thinly drawn and confusingly played. What's more, Klane wimps out by trying to humanize Momma Horcheiser in flashbacks, and director Gordon Hunt lets him get away with it by playing these scenes straight.

Sorry, but we don't want to see Momma (played by Marylouise Burke) in non-monster incarnation. We don't want to understand her, for pity's sake. We just want her out of Gordon's (Jeff Marlow) life. Of course, without those Momma flashbacks (or a couple of dim-witted interludes involving Sidney, his horny wife, Viagra and the aforementioned gorilla suit), "Where's Poppa?" would hardly be a play at all; just a bunch of borrowed, mean- spirited set pieces. About the best that can be said for Hunt's production is that -- at barely 90 minutes -- it doesn't overstay what little welcome it possesses.

A veteran of David Lindsay-Abaire's plays, Burke is a smart and likable performer with a disarming smile, but she doesn't locate the holy-terror ferocity that Momma is supposed to embody. This character isn't simply senile. She's probably faking part of it.

Similarly, Marlow's Gordon comes across more as a slightly wimpy guy with a problem than as a man driven to desperate acts by a lunatic materfamilias. Which makes his subsequent behavior seem cruel rather than "no jury would convict him" justified.

Katie MacNichol garners some laughs as Louise, the vulnerable nurse who applies to be Momma's caretaker and ends up inflaming Gordon's ardor. Here, of course, we have another character asked to go to great lengths in the interest of broad comedy. MacNichol complies, but there's a certain "so what" about it.

The performer for whom all this comes easiest is elder son Sidney (Barry Pearl). The character doesn't make a lot of sense, but, by God, Pearl grabs that monkey suit and plays it for all its worth.

"Where's Poppa?" -- we learn via program notes -- is from the catalog of MGM on Stage, the studio's cinema-to-stage division that already has given the world "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and the upcoming musical version of "Legally Blonde."

That "Where's Poppa?" did not also end up a musical is yet another indication that human beings should be grateful for small favors.

Evan Henerson, [phone]

[e-mail]

WHERE'S POPPA? - One and one half stars

Where: Falcon Theatre, 4252 Riverside Drive, Burbank.

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, 4 p.m. Sunday; through March 25.

Tickets: $30 to $37.50. [phone].

In a nutshell: A better question: Where's the laughs?

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Photo:

Wesley Horton Momma (Marylouise Burke) hugs son Gordon (Jeff Marlow) in the Falcon Theatre production of "Where's Poppa?"