STAGE REVIEW : Hollywood Takes ‘Shot’ at Laughing at Itself

After his Actors’ Studio audition, Shelley Winters told an out-of-work actor to “consider an alternative career.” No way. He can scratch and writhe and mumble pseudo-Mamet dialogue with the best of them. We just saw him do it. His scene partner and roommate, Patrick, may be a couple of jumps ahead of the auditioning Dern, but that doesn’t say much.

In the view of playwright Dan Bell’s “The Shot,” they’re clowns, and he puts into their hopeless minds and hapless mouths a delicious blend of Hollywood actors’ dream balloons and cliches. Their intellectual pratfalls are almost Chaplinesque, simultaneously funny and sad. Knock on any door in Hollywood--there are Patrick and Dern, kicking debris out of their way as they slouch across the room and fully expecting, in Patrick’s case, a three-year contract with a top agency and, in Dern’s, co-starring status with Clint Eastwood.

What they get is an idea: Why not rip off the only negative of David Mamet’s new film and hold it for ransom? It’s a clever gimmick and it’s what gives shape to “The Shot,” at the Olio. But the core of the piece remains the characters of Patrick and Dern, played respectively with on-target satire by Gill Gayle and the playwright.

It would be to the play’s advantage to spend more time with them. Whether they’re trying to force down trendy food at a trendy restaurant or ripping apart the talents of Bruce Willis at a movie matinee, they’re a memorable creation.

Less memorable is a subplot about Mamet’s stealing his own negative for the insurance money. “He just wants to make a profit,” says Mamet’s attorney, Rodney Ricks. Played by Lee Kissman, who also directs stylishly, Ricks’ best moment is a conversation on his car phone with Bruce Willis, trying to bolster the actor’s ego after he has been dropped from the film version of “Glengarry Glen Ross.” Sure, Bruce, Demi thinks you have talent, too.

Around the edges, “The Shot” sounds a little like John Steppling, but only a little. Steppling never has his tongue this far in his cheek. Bell’s kinky humor makes the difference, and it works fine when it’s played dead serious. When it isn’t, it just misses. That’s what happens to Rick Dean’s private detective, who secretly writes screenplays in the Mamet mode and sounds oddly like John Wayne.

Mindy Fisher is closer to the mark as a female guard at 20th Century Fox, and Julie Summer, as Patrick’s wiser actress sister, knows exactly what she’s doing with deadpan delivery of such lines as, “He’s gonna do a female version of ‘American Buffalo’ if he ever wants to see this film again.”

Morley Bartnof’s sound, Erik Hanson’s costumes and George Stoll’s lighting frame the satire well. Hollywood and its denizens are easy to rib. Patrick and Dern do more than that. They laugh seriously at themselves, and that’s what a sense of humor is all about.

At 3709 Sunset Blvd., Silver Lake, Thursdays through Saturdays, 8:30 p.m., until Nov . 4. Tickets: $10; (213) 667-9556.