‘Acme City Limits’ a Mixed Offering

In “Acme City Limits,” the Acme Players once again prove themselves a bright group on the L.A. comedy scene.

However, as is frequently the case with sketch comedy, there are some duds in the mix, and a few of the performers are occasionally so broad and splenetic as to be incoherent, a failing that director M.D. Sweeney does not address.

Despite these occasional lapses, the show at Acme Comedy Theatre elicits a fair amount of laughter interspersed with plangent social commentary. Ted Hardwick plays a suitably smarmy host for “Hollywood Talent Search Jr.,” a children’s talent contest pitting a deprived, wide-eyed moppet from Chechnya (Susie Geiser) against a privileged, precociously sexual American miss (Antoinette Spolar).

In Audrey Rapoport’s “Square Off,” husband and wife square-dance callers (Rapoport and Hardwick) conduct a hilariously acrimonious on-stage spat, completely in do-si-do rhyme.

The funniest sketch of the evening is Spolar’s “Coming Out Party,” featuring Spolar as a dead-on Liza Minnelli impersonator performing at a children’s party. Jerry Lambert plays the birthday boy, an effusive 7-year-old who tap dances to a different drummer. The icing on this birthday cake? Spolar plays a mean Cher as well.

* “Acme City Limits,” Acme Comedy Theatre, 135 N . La Brea Ave . , Los Angeles. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Indefinitely. $12. (213) 525-0202. Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes.