‘FINE LINE’ DRAWN TOO BOLDLY AT CAST

The phrase a fine line usually refers to a subtle distinction. But it also might mean a fragment of dialogue, the kind of sentence that basks in its writer’s craftsmanship. Judy Romberger’s “A Fine Line,� at the Cast, could use more subtle shading of its characters, and fewer showy lines that primarily call attention to Romberger.

The play is set in the kitchen of a Riverside County ranch house at dawn. Steven T. Howell designed the kitchen more carefully than he lit the dawn.

Out in the barn, a mare is giving birth. Inside the pantry, an illegal alien (Lucy Rodriguez) is doing the same.

These events trigger changes in the relationships among everyone who lives there: the rancher (Rance Howard) and his second wife (Christopher Callen), her teen-age daughter (Roxana Zal), and the maid (Sharon Madden) and her boyfriend, an immigration officer (Les Lannom).

The changes are easy to predict, because the characters are too broadly drawn. It’s hard to care about the breakup of a marriage when we can’t imagine why the couple ever got together. And if a mother and daughter can’t feel a common bond while helping another mother give birth, they should have their hearts examined.

Romberger has created logistical problems that director Guy Giarrizzo hasn’t solved. Would labor pains really stop just so characters in the next room can talk about their deteriorating marriage? Would a woman engage in fond recollections of her daughter’s birth while a man is threatening her with a knife?

Would this particular man really threaten these particular people with a knife--and then suddenly become a softie?

Callen’s performance suffers the most from these problems--and from Romberger’s most artificial lines. Madden is stuck in a stock role, the funny maid, but handles it well. The other actors, including Marco Hernandez as the man with the knife, have all found moments of truth, but they need more help from the author.

Performances are at 804 N. El Centro Ave., Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 7 p.m. Tickets: $12, (213-462-0265).

‘THIRD WORLD’

What motivates young Americans to join Sandinista-approved relief efforts in Nicaragua?

Don’t ask Donald Lewis. In “Third World,� at Uprising Theatre in Long Beach, Lewis seems to say that a young husband and wife want to leave Chicago for Nicaragua primarily to take their minds off his sexual impotence.

While it isn’t inconceivable that this could be a factor in such a decision, Lewis doesn’t adequately fill us in on the other factors. Not only does this create credibility problems, but it reduces a potentially complex subject to the level of a letter to an advice columnist.

Furthermore, the play doesn’t even work as a study of impotence. The man appears to be on the road to recovery by play’s end, but it isn’t clear how he got there. “Third World� still sounds like a first draft, replete with too many little pieces of dialogue that might look good on paper but that don’t belong in this play.

Glen Quasny’s staging is spotty. Todd Breaugh copes well enough as the man in question, but his leading lady, Lorene M. Duran, looks too young to be wallowing in ‘60s nostalgia. The supporting performances are all over the map, the highest point of which is Chip Washington’s brief appearance as Pizza Man.

The tiny space at 3125 E. 7th St., Long Beach, looks like the apartment it’s supposed to depict--including flat, untheatrical lighting. Performances are Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. Tickets: $4-$6, (213-438-8922).

‘TOO ROUGH?’

“Too Rough?,� at the Melrose, is strictly an actors’ showcase: a collection of chances for the cast to act sexy, loony, sexy, troubled, sexy, whatever--no matter how unlikely such displays might be at a Melrose Avenue talent agency that specializes in entertainers for parties, one day in 1981.

Perhaps the material is supposed to add up to an attack on the shallow values of the Hollywood fast lane. But the arithmetic is so faulty that the play more accurately exemplifies those values. There are a few self-consciously clever lines, but there is no sign of a genuine playwright.

Leigh Hamilton, who co-wrote the script with Wally Dalton, also plays the most prominent role, a would-be actress whose endless malapropisms soon lose their comic punch and sound merely contrived. As a cynical screenwriter whose presence in this shop is never well explained, Patrick Dollaghan earns a few authentic laughs.

Performances are at 733 N. Seward St., Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 7 p.m., through June 22. Tickets: $10-$12, (213-467-6482).