UNREAL MEETS REAL IN COMICAL 'BUNBURY'.

Byline: Katherine Karlin Correspondent

THE PREMISE of ``Bunbury'' is irresistible for theatergoers: Playwright Tom Jacobson has taken drama's most famous off-stage characters and given them rich imaginative lives. These are the ``subfictional'' beings, those characters who are mentioned but who never appear and who exist merely to nudge along the plot.

We find the famously ailing Bunbury, Algernon's flippant excuse for taking extended leaves in the countryside in Oscar Wilde's ``The Importance of Being Earnest,'' alive and quite well in his Victorian parlor, where a chat with his manservant suddenly conjures up Rosaline, Romeo's love before he met Juliet.

Shocked to discover she's a fictional construct, and a nonspeaking one at that, Rosaline rushes to the crypt to interrupt Romeo and Juliet in their double suicide. Bunbury, delighted with this subversion of literature, decides to romp through the 20th century breathing life into those characters who never got to make their grand entrance.

Thus we meet Allen, Blanche Dubois' sensitive young husband, and Jim, the concocted son of George and Martha from ``Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'' Even Godot shows up. Along the way, the jaded Bunbury and nervous Rosaline discover that, although they might have been written off the page, they can making a lasting impact that transcends their authors' intentions.

The comedy must be an actor's dream as well, as the cast members get to show off their chops in a variety of styles and period costumes. The standout is Peggy Billo, who turns in an imperious Lady Bracknell as well as a blowsy Martha. In the title role, Sean Wing approximates a Wildean fop but doesn't grow in his character as much as Jacobson's script allows. Director Mark Bringelson manages to keep order within the chaos.

Unfortunately, the play ends just a few moments too late. Jacobson follows an unbeatable punch line with a ponderous coda in which an ancient, puffed-up Algernon articulates the message of the play. Never mind that the delightful man-about-town could not possibly have become such a pompous nonagenarian, the scene has a self-importance of which Wilde himself would have disapproved.

BUNBURY - Three stars

Where: The Road Theatre, 5108 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood.

When: 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday; through Dec. 4.

Tickets: $20. [phone]; www.roadtheatre.org.

In a nutshell: A brilliant comic premise with only a whiff of gravitas.