Friar Laurence gets held to the fire

Don’t judge it by its ponderous name. “The People vs. Friar Laurence, the Man Who Killed Romeo and Juliet,” a new musical comedy at the Tamarind, is a fast-moving freight train of an entertainment that carries a full load of laughs.

The play transpires shortly after Romeo and Juliet’s untimely demise. The setting is Friar Laurence’s cell -- not monastic cell, but jail cell. You see, Friar Laurence (Bruce Green, amusingly double-cast as the Nurse) has some explaining to do about the part he played in the tragedy. Under interrogation by the Prince (dryly funny Rick Hall), Laurence defends his various screw-ups. As the Prince points out, giving a 14-year-old girl a coma-inducing potion was maybe not exactly the best move.

In flashback, we see events unfold with inexorable wackiness. Director Ron West, who wrote the book and co-wrote music and lyrics with Phil Swann, retains the play’s basic structure but festoons the familiar with updated language and an exhaustive quantity of running gags. Some, granted, run on too long, but West’s nimble performers never tire in their pursuit of laughs.

Other weaknesses are evident. The singing, performed to musical director Swann’s live piano accompaniment, is only intermittently competent, and the choreography is vestigial at best. However, West’s comically acute staging minimizes the inadequacies and maximizes the fun.

Many in the cast are alumni of various comedy-improv companies, and the training shows.

Nicole Parker plays Juliet with feminist elan, Norm Thoeming is a winning goofball as Romeo and David Castellani is flat-out hilarious as Mercutio, whose highbrow Shakespearean utterances baffle his slack-jawed pals.

*

‘The People vs. Friar Laurence’

Where: Tamarind Theatre, 5919 Franklin Ave., Hollywood

When: Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m.

Ends: March 7

Price: $20

Contact: (323) 465-7980

Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes