A moment's notice The Usual Suspects improv troupe is full of spontaneity and the occasional belly laugh By Anthony Del Valle, Las Vegas CityLife When you first walk in to Planet Mirth, you see a small store cramped with counter space hawking things like stage swords that sell for $500 each. The place is a hangout for magicians, and just when you're wondering how anyone could hang out in this tiny space and still breathe regularly, a door opens and reveals a wonderfully intimate but roomy auditorium. The environment is gaslight theater gothic with dim lighting and huge, framed posters touting the exploits of the likes of Houdini, and a small playing area draped by a drop suggesting a medieval archway, and a black stage curtain splattered with glitter. For now, the setting is home to the Usual Suspects, an improv comedy group that looks to the audience to shape its show. Last week about two dozen young, hip, hopeful, apparently well-educated, ready-to-laugh locals turned up for a Saturday night performance, and, as my companion commented --a comedy troupe performer herself--"This is good. I mean, really good." The trio--Finley Bolton, Rick Ginn and Jeff Granstrom--are all major stage presences. They're fine actors as well as expert comedians. You admire their immaculate timing and physical precision, but it's their ability to play honest-to-god characters that makes these talented suspects unusual. It wouldn't be fair to reveal too many of their secrets, but one sketch finds the trio performing a dramatic moment in the style of whichever playwright an audience member calls out. So a simple scene about a woman, a man and a possible baby becomes, in a matter of seconds, cutsey in the manner of Neil Simon, then heroic and stately and iambic pentameter-ish in the manner of Shakespeare, then sensual and poetic and lazy in the manner of Tennessee Williams ("I have a yearrrrrning," Granstrom intones cryptically, while waving his face to apparently ward off the heat of one of Williams' typically hot Southern summer days.) Another sketch finds Bolton as a nun who must speak only lines from movies given to her by the audience (in writing, prior to the performance), and Ginn as a priest who is free to respond in any way he wishes. When Bolton dutifully reads her given line--"Attention Earthlings! Prepare for an anal probing!"--Ginn replies, in Irish-accented priestly concern, "Perhaps, sister, you've been spending too much time with the choirboys." And a hilarious gospel song, complete with background music tracks and tricky, tacky rhymes, is improvised on the spot, with the audience's help. The hour-long performance has some dead spots, particularly when bits are being set up. And the evening might feel more complete if the show had some structure to it, if its rhythms and sketches grew in complexity as the evening progressed. But the Usual Suspects are an hour of smiles, topped by at least half-a-dozen belly laughs--more if you're not in a bad mood. And the laughs are deepened not by the performers' understanding of timing, but of character. You can tell there's another layer to the talents of Finley Bolton, Rick Ginn and Jeff Granstrom that goes beyond improvisational comedy.