‘Bridesmaid’: First-Rate for Charm, Wit

Kay Cole and Barbara Sharma have made a career out of stealing stuff--musical scenes, to be exact.

Now the veteran sidekicks have come downstage and grabbed the spotlight in “Always a Bridesmaid,” a sly, charming and hugely entertaining cabaret show of favorite--and a few all-but-forgotten--Broadway numbers originally sung by secondary characters.

On the tiny stage at Tonto & Dietz, a “coffee cabaret” in a Studio City strip mall, Cole and Sharma blaze through some terrific medleys of tunes by Harold Arlen, Richard Rodgers, Stephen Sondheim, Jerry Herman and others.

With Shelly Markham’s sprightly piano accompaniment, the pair never lose their self-deprecating edge. “Second bananas, part of the bunch,” they sing in the title song by Billy Barnes, the show’s sole original number. “Why don’t producers take us to lunch?”

Producers probably would if they saw this show. Leaning against a wall, Cole does sexy, languorous versions of the Arlen standards “A Sleepin’ Bee” and “Come Rain or Come Shine.” Sharma lends her Betty Boop voice and zesty comedic flair to Sondheim’s “I’m Still Here,” a paean to show-biz survivors, which contains what might be the definitive second-banana line: “First you’re another sloe-eyed vamp, then someone’s mother, then you’re camp.”

“Always a Bridesmaid” is first-rate. * “Always a Bridesmaid,” Tonto & Dietz, 12747 Ventura Blvd., Studio City. Fridays-Saturdays, 8:30 p.m. Ends Oct. 30. $15. (818) 763-4166. Running time: 1 hour, 10 minutes.

‘SAVE-ME*’: More for the Faithful

Thanks to Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart, the televangelist has become a kind of stock character--a drawling confidence man preying on the global village.

“1-800-SAVE-ME” takes a slightly different tack. In Jack Betts’ ambitiously overwritten new melodrama--now at the Marilyn Monroe Theatre in West Hollywood--a TV preacher’s greed and lust are portrayed as near-tragic flaws instead of sleazy peccadilloes.

Betts stars as J. D. Willets, a onetime shoe salesman who fronts a struggling bus-and-truck ministry. With the help of trusted aide Walker (Brogan Roche), an embittered disabled man who once threatened his life, Willets becomes a celebrated faith healer. Yet that success sets in motion an elaborate revenge plot that brings the preacher’s past back to haunt him. Lois Nettleton plays Willets’ close confidante and ministry partner.

Aside from its ill-advised title, the play suffers from windy dialogue and a few dramaturgic lapses, including some clumsy flashbacks and symbolism involving Willets’ ill-fated romance with a troubled woman (Susan Anspach). Betts’ rather colorless portrayal forces the audience to accept on faith Willets’ supposed charisma.

Still, Betts’ work makes a valiant effort to humanize a protagonist who could easily have collapsed into a tabloid cliche. For that alone, it deserves credit.

* “1-800-SAVE-ME * ,” Marilyn Monroe Theatre, 7936 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends Oct. 8. $15. (213) 650-7777. Running time: 2 hours, 35 minutes.

This ‘Caesar’ Shifts Toward the Campy

Marc Antony as an honorable woman?

Well, what else would you expect from a troupe that calls itself the Non-Traditional Shakespeare Company?

Director Joseph Marcell, best known as the butler on TV’s “Fresh Prince of Bel Air,” has taken a stab at Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” with a color-blind, gender-bending production. Thus a black actress, Deborah Lacey, plays the Antony who comes to bury Caesar (John Wesley), not praise him.

Unfortunately, Marcell’s notions of non-traditional theater seem to begin and end with casting. The show resembles nothing so much as an excruciating read-through, with scarcely any thought given to dramatizing the text in a fresh, visually interesting way.

The cast members struggle mightily with the verse while the tragedy unintentionally veers into camp. On the battlefield, with the future of the Roman Empire at stake, noble Cassius (Austin Stoker) responds to an argument by literally throwing a temper tantrum in Brutus’ tent.

A speedy burial would probably be best for this “Caesar.”

* “Julius Caesar,” Little Theatre, Los Angeles Valley College, 5800 Fulton Ave., Van Nuys. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends Oct. 9. $10. (213) 658-9655. Running time: 3 hours, 5 minutes.