A BED AND A BAR The music. The slang. The characters’ and audience members’ prowess with cell phones — there’s nothing like a comedy about young love to keep the monocled theater critic tethered to contemporary America. However, while Carlos Javier Castillo’s play has flashes of zippy dialogue (press materials tout him as “the Mexican Mamet”) and some wry observations on modern relationships, after a while those relationships start to look a lot like the kind we’re used to seeing onstage. Two couples meet separately at a bar for one-night stands but find themselves falling into the long haul. At this point (roughly when the male characters’ over-the-top comments about pussy, bitches and hos get stale), the story itself falls for traditional, purple badinage about commitment and loneliness, and loses its comedic bling. Gloria Gifford lightly directs a double-cast, shoestring production (actors at the “bar” pour their own drinks out of a bottle), but moves things swiftly across set designers Neita and Dayton’s spartan set, which is inexplicably bookended downstage by a crucifix and a flashlight. On the night I attended, Shaun Baker’s performance as smooth-talking club prowler Christian was easily the show’s biggest charm; that evening’s bill also included Chad Doreck, Anaisabel Mercado, Kimberly Demarse and Joseph Eid as a fifth-wheel character who seems to represent the latest in male dandyism but whose skinny leather tie, cassette tapes and use of pay phones was oddly anachronistic. GGC Theater, 6468 Santa Monica Blvd., Hlywd.; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; thru July 1. (800)... More >>>