Football Fanatics Deflated in Comic ‘Serious Games’

You don’t have to like or understand football to appreciate the dead-on,laugh-out-loud production of Steve Monroe’s “Serious Games” at Theatre/Theater.

His two ultra-superstitious gambling addicts have ritualized the art of Saturday afternoon football watching. Deeply in debt, they’ve told their bookie to put it all on this game.

But bad luck threatens. James (Frank Ciraci) misses the morning eat-meet where they go to a specific diner solely to discuss the odds. Then Kidd (James DuMont), who has been having a hot sexual fling with a wanton waitress named Margaret (Laura Jane Salvato), must choose between his libido and the two buddies’ time-worn rule of no women. They’ve never won a bet when a woman has watched the game with them.

Monroe may plant in-jokes in the football patter--no matter. Tamara McDonough’s sharp direction and pacing bring vivid life to these hilarious characters. Ciraci and DuMont ooze a couch-potato seriousness, buttered with a sickly co-dependency. Salvato projects lusty neediness as well as the puzzled, pathetic look of the marginalized.

Richard Mahaney’s scenic design evokes an atmosphere of dreary comfort--a living room dominated by two overstuffed chairs and a television. As a sports personality with a dim bulb and a sports commentator, Michael C. Mahon and David Q. Combs are effectively funny.

This is an affectionate, fluffy look at male bonding and the follies of football fanatics.

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* “Serious Games,” Theatre/Theater, 6425 Hollywood Blvd., Fourth Floor, Hollywood. Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends March 26. $15. (323) 871-9433. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.