STAGE REVIEW : A Diet of Couch-Potato Theater : When TV Is Not Enough

Sniff, sniff.

Something very odd, verry hyper and verrry loud is going on at the Westwood Playhouse.

The title is “The Real Live Brady Bunch, Episode One: The Subject Was Noses,� preceded by its curtain raiser, “The Real Live Game Show.� But if what they stand for is to be called theater at all, we have a few names to suggest. Among the milder ones are Theater of Schlock or Absurdity (versus Absurdist) Theater. But our favorite is Theater of Virtual Realite . Because even with its satirical intent clearly marked and out there, “The Real Live Brady Bunch� is a cloning of TV reality once-removed. Ergo, the virtually real, virtually live Brady Bunch.

Got that? In truth, this stage re-creation of white-bread episodic TV, preceded by the all-out hysteria of a television game show, is a very L.A. idea, even if it was born in Chicago and became a subcultural hit in New York before hitting the town that owns its soul.

Take the “Game Show.� Replete with very game audience participants and gross-me-out commercial breaks, it’s the commercials (as usual) that take it away: gross semi-nude bodies in sequins and glitter doing semi-gross dances while advertising a Malibu Pier cafe; a naked man plugging a hot Mexican restaurant; and four be-bop singers plugging “Forever Plaid,� a rival show in Beverly Hills. Now there’s gamesmanship.

Floor director Jane Lynch gives a whole new meaning to the term piercing voice . And host Wayne Waddell (one of the show’s producers) couldn’t muster more frozen, smile-in-place charm if he permanently attached the ends of his mouth to his ear lobes. But under all of the bouncing off the walls, musician Faith Soloway’s apoplectic chords and the decibel-busting shrieks and squeals, there is . . . . . well, absolutely nothing.

That, some in the audience will tell you, is the beauty part. Nothing is what this show is supposed to be about. And just so we get this on the record at once: The crowd at Tuesday’s opening (which included at least two of the original series stars and game show host Wink Martindale) couldn’t get enough of this nothing , especially those people draped on couches or sitting on the floor in the redesigned front or “living room� end of the theater. (There audience members are encouraged to bring pillows and snacks--an effort by producers to make them feel right at home.)

After such an unrelentingly high-pitched start, can a virtually real, virtually live episode of “The Brady Bunch� come off as anything but an anticlimax? It can. It’s not Rolaids but it still spells R-E-L-I-E-F. And it’s a lot more subtle (if that word can apply to any part of this spoof) with a stunning drop-dead take on oldest daughter Marcia by actress Becky Thyre.

In this week’s episode (there are four more to come), smug, blond Marcia breaks a date with good chum Charlie to accept one with campus football star Doug. But she lives to discover that Doug’s interest wanes when her nose swells after a collision with a ball. “Cyrano� it’s not, no, but the episode is complete with homilies, vanities, leers, blank stares, vapid smiles and moral mortification.

Lynch, a Florence Henderson look-alike, reappears here as a ringer for beatific mother Carol, while Mari Weiss has all of the Ann B. Davis moves as down-to-earth housekeeper Alice. Madeline Long, in blond locks and chubby dress, gives a raffishly deadpan reading of simpy sister Cindy, while John Kean salivates with adolescent prurience as oldest brother Greg. The ending says it all, as Weiss belts the Jefferson Airplane’s “Go Ask Alice� while the bunch does unspeakable things to itself.

Not exactly the spin-off that series creator Sherwood Schwartz had in mind, but a sendup that has his blessing and has apparently encouraged him to look further afield. Are you ready for this? Schwartz is preparing “Gilligan’s Island: The Musical� to open May 27 at the Flat Rock Playhouse in Flat Rock, N. C. Honest. How soon, before it hits Westwood?

As for “Real Live Brady Bunch,� it would seem to have dollar signs all over it and no socially redeeming value. The perfect show for the ‘90s. Greater insight into what made the ‘70s TV “Brady Bunch� the phenomenon that it was and this show the phenomenon that it is, comes in Bill McKibben’s “The Age of Missing Information.�

Of the original “Bunch� he says: “(It’s) a life where no work is done . . . where everything happens in a big and isolated suburban home, where parents are mostly pals, where money flows in, where food appears. We can make fun of it, laugh at it, but all of us who grew up with it (which means everyone born since it went on the air) are affected by it. Very few of us can afford to live like the Bradys.�

So. Dream machine or delusion? The answer may depend on how old you are. As theater, “The Real Live Brady Bunch� is a lot better than its over-the-top “Real Live Game Show.� Two episodes of “Bunch,� back-to-back, would be a vast improvement. And if this isn’t your cup of soup, remember, there’s always “Forever Plaid� just down the boulevard.

“The Real Live Brady Bunch, Episode One: The Subject Was Noses,� Westwood Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood. Tuesdays-Friday s , 8 p.m.; Saturday s , 7 and 9:30 p.m.; Sunday s , 3 and 7 p.m. This episode ends next Wednesday. Check theater for schedule of upcoming episodes. $16-$24; (213) 480-3232, (714) 740-2000, (213) 208-5454. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

‘The Real Live Brady Bunch, Episode One: The Subject Was Noses’

Eric W. Waddell: Real Live Game Show Host

John Copeland: Real Live Game Show Model

Dana: Real Live Game Show Model

Andy Richter: Real Live Game Show Announcer/Mike

Jane Lynch: Carol

John Kean: Greg

Becky Thyre: Marcia

Benjamin Zook: Peter

Kathryn Kelly: Jan

Tom Booker: Bobby

Madeline Long: Cindy

Mari Weiss: Alice

A Ron Delsener presentation of a Soloway sisters/Eric W. Waddell production of Real Live TV Night. Executive producer Ron Delsener. Producers Jill and Faith Soloway, Eric W. Waddell. Co-directors Jill and Faith Soloway. Series creator Sherwood Schwartz. Episode writers Al Schwartz, Larry Rhine. Art director Thia Rogan. Production design Dan Kipp, Jim Jatho. Original music Frank De Vol. Music Faith Soloway. Technical directors Dan Kipp, Jim Jatho. Stage managers Dan Kipp, Thia Rogan.