Characters Manage to Ignite a Slow-Cooking ‘Waffles’

“Groundlings Chicken ‘n Waffles,” the Groundlings’ latest main stageoffering, comes cold off the griddle for much of the first act. The service is slow--especially the first two improv segments.

Probably the improvisers were having an off night--but except for Kevin Ruf’s dead-on Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonation, the scripted material is often self-consciously idiosyncratic and flat.

But don’t send this entree back to the kitchen just yet. Jeremy Rowley heats things up as a world-class whiner who holds up a line of impatient people at a Blockbuster video store.

Introduced in past shows, Rowley’s character speaks in an indefinable pidgin dialect and cringes like a finalist in a limbo competition: The lower he goes, the more we roar.

The hot streak holds with Amy Von Freymann’s prosthetically gaunt Helen Gurley Brown, a maven of tastelessness who offers an audience volunteer graphic sex tips. Ruf scores once again as a monstrously smug single subjecting his poor date (Carrie Aizley) to his “Statement of Principles.” Then, Rowley re-creates “Les Miserables” in an aerobically funny solo sequence.

Changing wigs and hats like a threshing machine, Rowley lip-syncs the characters and duplicates the show’s special effects with such low-tech devices as a flashlight, a squirt bottle and a hair dryer. It’s a bit of an in-joke, but hilarious.

This particular evening concluded on a high point with a crackling improv sequence, followed by Will Forte’s amusing portrayal of a gold-painted statue/-mime whose sidewalk performance veers into the bizarre. As, often, does this show--but not always to the desired comic effect.

BE THERE

“Groundlings Chicken ‘n Waffles,” Groundling Theatre, 7307 Melrose Ave. Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 8 and 10 p.m. Runs indefinitely. $18.50. (323) 934-9700. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.