THE STAGE

The Bicentennial is making its presence fait on the Boston area theater scene, we may all have drowned in red, white and blue streamers by the end of the summer.

Oh, Kay! The lobby of the Loeb is festooned with those streamers and with blinking lights in honor of the theater's summer season of "four American plays." And what could be more American than a George and Ira Gershwin musical about upper-class bootlegging during Prohibition? Admittedly Oh, Kay! has a book co-authored by one of the enemy--P.G. Wodehouse--but the score should more than make up for it, with such all-American numbers as "Clap Yo' Hands," "Someone To Watch Over Me," "Maybe," and "Do, Do, Do." It was a smash hit in 1926. The Loeb's version is directed by Loeb's Wunderkind Josh Rubins '70, author of the well-received musical Suffragette! At the Loeb tonight through Saturday and July 7-12 at 8 p.m. except Saturday at 9. Tickets are a steep $5.50 and $6.50, but if you're a student and you get there 15 minutes early, you can get a dollar knocked off the price.

Ryan's Yorktown Tune. If Oh, Kay! isn't American enough for you, you can check out this "Bicentennial play" commissioned by Tufts in honor of the occasion. Don't expect any of the typical fife-drum-and-bugle-stars-and-stripes hoopla, though. This play reportedly addresses the question, "Do people make revolutions or do revolutions make people?" and the plot concerns a cowardly Boston barman who is forced to become a revolutionary because he needs the money and because Sam Adams threatens to put a bullet through his head. The script isn't flawless, but the production is good and offers a new variation on what is already a hackneyed subject. At the Tufts Arena Theater, Medford, Thursday through Saturday at 8:15.

Corral. Cambridge's improvisational theater group. The Proposition, was going to mount its own Bicentennial contribution, Boston Tea Party, starting July 2, but the response to their original musical Corral was so good they've held it over through the end of the month. Don't worry, though. Corral is about as American as you can get. It's a "Western Musical," complied from old Wild West writings and diaries and complete with old Wild West songs. (If you're dying to see the Boston Tea Party at the optimal patriotic time, it's being performed free tomorrow night at 8 in Crocker Park in Marblehead.) Corral is at 8:30 tonight. Tomorrow and Saturday the Proposition will continue as usual with its long-running improvisational revue at 8 and 10.

Volpone. If all this Americana is beginning to stick in your throat, get away from it all and go see this classic satire by Shakespeare's old drinking buddy Ben Jonson Jonson lets his venom loose on greed a timeless subject that's usually good for a chortie or two. There's a character named Sir Politic Wouldbe. Presented by the Public Theater outdoors under the stars by the Charles at 1175 Soldiers Field Road in Auston. Tomorrow and Saturday at 8:30, tickets a reasonable one book.