Wendkos’ ‘Gang of Girls’ Falters at the Cast Theatre

Gina Wendkos has a great sense of humor, so the only thing one can surmise about her “A Gang of Girls” at the Cast Theatre is that she’s got to be kidding.

This latest throwaway from Los Angeles’ current most prolific writer must be the result of fatigue or writing too much television or momentary aberration. In any case, it can’t be serious.

Wendkos, who gave us, among other things, “Personality” (still at the Odyssey) and the biting “Boys and Girls/Men and Women,” is too talented a feminist and a writer to be dishing out anything as amateurish as this “Gang.”

We’re in the waiting room of an abortion clinic in Queens. Three women occupy it. One sobs uncontrollably (and unconvincingly); the other two strike up a conversation. Stella (soundly played by Carol Ann Susi) is one tough cookie. Paula (Molly Cleator) is all idealism and indecisiveness--an innocent and a fool. The sobber (Pattie Pierce) is a cipher.

They’re eventually joined by frantic, sexy Mona (Janet Borrus) and as more talk gets passed around, it looks for a while as if two of these women might have the same guy to blame for their predicament--until he walks in and events take another turn. But no turns can save this play.

There’s no point in repeating the talk or revealing the upshot. The play is X-rated sitcom banter, thin and only superficially clever. A hefty nurse with a loud voice, big frame and bigger mouth keeps barging in with gratuitous comments, calling out names, mostly of women who aren’t there. She never takes in the next person in line.

Is this any way to run a clinic? Or a play? Super-comic Ellen Ratner is not doing herself a favor playing this non-nurse; James DiStefano is miscast as the guy, and the whole affair is stretched beyond any semblance of credibility.

Opening night played to an audience of friends and the already-persuaded. They had a ball. But the party’s over. Whooping and hollering won’t professionalize this “Gang.” In the cold light of day, it’s time to retrench and rethink--or take a vacation.

Performances at 804 N. El Centro Ave. run Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 8 p.m., until June 29. Tickets: $8; (213) 462-0265.