‘Love Killers’

The hillbilly caricatures in Gail Baker Shick’s “Love Killers” at the Off Ramp make the solid authenticity and muscular writing of another Appalachian play, the ongoing “A Gift From Heaven” (especially its rewritten version), all the more impressive.

“Love Killers” is just over the hill and down Cahuenga Holler from “Gift From Heaven” at the Chamber Playhouse, but it’s the distance between real and fake. “Love” features a lineup of cliches: the inexpressive but protective Ma (Dixie King Wade); her troubled half-wit son Bubba (Bill Shick); her other boy, a withdrawn Vietnam vet named Ludie (Vaughn Armstrong, the strongest presence in the show); the Daisy Mae next door, here named Cora Sue (Melody Rogers, of TV fame); and a pair of seductive city slickers (Patrick (Paraquat) Kelley and Catherine Rusoff).

The efforts of director Judy Goff and her designers reinforce these stereotypes. Shick’s script--though full of dire secrets and offstage intrigue--never achieves the gravity that the events would seemingly dictate.

At 1953 Cahuenga Blvd., Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 7 p.m., indefinitely. Tickets: (213) 466-1767.