‘Crooks’ Survives on Madcap Energy

“Crooks,” Leigh Reilly Hayes’ big, sprawling mess of a play at the Tiffany, starts off as a half-baked kidnapping caper but metamorphoses into a delightful show-business parody along the lines of “Wag the Dog.”

In the first scene, Bill Wishfell (Michael Wiseman) and his wife Babe (Saratoga Ballantine), losers longing for a big score, have just kidnapped business executive Joe White (Aaron Lustig). However, Bill and Babe aren’t interested in collecting a ransom. In a sort of crash Dale Carnegie course--at gunpoint, no less--they intend to pick Joe’s brain and learn his secret to success.

As plots go, it’s a stretch, but when the action switches from the Wishfells’ trashy desert shack to a Hollywood power suite--a lightning swift scene change thanks to Scott Heineman’s malleable set--the trumped-up opening fades into the background as we are swept up in the intrigues of Hollywood’s most conniving boneheads.

Chief among the schemers is Adam Blackmiere (Daniel Roebuck), a lecherous television producer who would make Machiavelli look like a paragon of straightforwardness. Adam is having an affair with his sultry development head Eve White (Colleen Quinn), Joe’s wife. When Eve becomes a suspect in Joe’s disappearance, she and Adam launch into damage control mode, digging their proverbial graves ever deeper with each lie.

Lustig, who also directs, stages the play with an inspired sardonicism, and the actors, spearheaded by the hilarious Roebuck, bring an appropriately madcap energy to Hayes’ formless but fun piece.

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* “Crooks,” Tiffany Theater, 8532 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood. Thursdays-Sundays, 8 p.m. Ends Aug. 30. $25-$30. (310) 289-2999. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.