‘Hello Muddah’ Offers a Few Guffaws, Many Chuckles

Allan Sherman’s wry glances at suburban Jewish life in the ‘60s remain laugh-out-loud funny. When “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh!�--a loose-knit musical spun from Sherman’s novelty songs--played the Forum Theatre in Thousand Oaks last summer, sold-out audiences ate it up.

It was easy to imagine “Muddah� moving to the Westside, where there is a large audience of Jewish and other theatergoers. The Brentwood Theatre, where “Muddah� opened Saturday, wasn’t easy to imagine, however--most theatergoers have never been there. Although the 500-seat structure dates from 1944, this is its first use by a commercial production within memory.

Trying to find the Brentwood in the rain Saturday was an adventure almost as exciting as some of the activities that take place at Camp Granada in the title song of “Muddah.� The theater is deep within the Veterans Administration grounds, not far from where Shakespeare Festival/L.A. performs in the summer. Go to the vicinity of the well-known Wadsworth Theater--also on the VA grounds--and head north. A few small signs point in the right direction.

At the parking lot (fee: $5, which benefits veterans’ causes), a shuttle service can transport you to the Brentwood itself. On Saturday, the shuttle’s little golf carts were mighty damp. Still, there was an appropriately Allan Shermanesque quality to the experience of arriving for a grand opening--complete with searchlights and a sprinkling of celebrities--in a wet golf cart.

The hall itself, spruced up but awaiting further renovation, isn’t great. The uncarpeted seating area is long and virtually flat, much like an auditorium instead of a theater, creating potentially obscured sight-lines. I was glad to be in an aisle seat near the front of the hall, for some of those in the rear said that sight-lines and sound quality weren’t ideal.

The production offers a few guffaws and many chuckles. It hasn’t been significantly changed from Thousand Oaks, although producer Michael Callan has taken over from the Theater League.

Barry, the suburbanite whose biography is the framework for the book by Douglas Bernstein and Rob Krausz, is again played by Jim Doughan, whose hangdog face and voice are ideal for Sherman’s brand of rueful whimsy. Leslie Klein is sympathetic and strong as his Sarah, while Jay Willick, Karen Needle and Don Lucas have fun as a wide variety of more outrageous subsidiary characters.

Some of the songs fit into the book extremely tenuously, but then the spirit of this enterprise is more akin to vaudeville or the Borscht Belt than to a standard book musical. Krausz again directs, with Thomas Griep leading a three-piece ensemble at the back of the stage.

* “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh!,� Brentwood Theatre, 11301 Wilshire Blvd., Veterans Administration grounds, Building 211, West L.A. Wednesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Saturday and Sundays, 2 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m.; Feb. 5 and March 5, 2 p.m. instead of 8 p.m. EndsMarch 16. (310) 444-0445 or (213) 365-3500. $26-$35. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.