STAGE REVIEW : Witty ‘Money & Friends’ Just Misses the Bull’s-Eye

It’s hard to pinpoint just where it is that “Money & Friends” begins to remind one of Stephen Sondheim’s “Company,” but chances are it happens when the behavior patterns of the couples in both shows begin to intersect.

Remember “people we annoy together, children we destroy together”? It’s the lyric that comes to mind as we see the four couples in Australian playwright David Williamson’s comedy do just that.

“Money & Friends,” the second show of the Ahmanson season at the Doolittle Theatre in Hollywood, is a comedy of manners in an era that doesn’t have manners, and a drawing-room comedy played on the decks of various beach retreats of the rich and neurotic.

The place is Crystal Inlet, “two hours south of Sydney,” which designers Martin Aronstein (lights) and Hayden Griffin (sets) render as a lush and leafy paradise on a tropically azure sea.

The comedy comes from the contrast between the serene setting and the unserene people in it, and what happens when so-called friends are suddenly asked to measure that friendship in money.

Peter (Michael Gross), a gentle and upstanding widower, has run into financial trouble that he confides only to his Scrabble partner and neighbor Margaret (Linda Thorson). Margaret, the outspoken survivor of a tough divorce, serves as our witty tour guide through the emotional rapids of the play, filling us in as needed--and preferably with malice--on the players.

These dwellers of Crystal Inlet, “scared they might miss a trend-shift,” turn out to be tightly knit only by wealth and the dirt they know about each other.

Decent and devoted Penny (Lizbeth Mackay) has left her orthopedic surgeon husband, the “toxically adversarial” Stephen (David Selby), a couple of times, but she keeps coming back.

Crass attorney Alex (John Getz) and wife Vicki (Lisa Banes) love to flaunt status as they bristle up to one another. (“If there’s a social ladder in sight,” Margaret tells us, “Vicki will climb it.”)

And television producer Conrad (John McMartin) and his pregnant third wife Jaquie (Julie White) reserve their weapons of choice for jousts with Conrad’s grown son Justin (Sean O’Bryan), who is visiting. This rebel offspring of Wife Number One has the manners of a rhinoceros but a body that has the older women in the group ogling.

And there you have it: changeless hypocrisy, love, sex, delusion and marriage.

What lends the play its title is Margaret’s suggestion, on the spur of a wild moment’s encouragement, that they all band together to bail Peter out of his predicament.

Rats have not abandoned sinking ships any faster. The sweet-natured Peter, genuine “friend” and survivor of the only happy marriage in the lot, would have let it go, but the stylish Margaret, a sophisticated fighter with a healthy taste for blood, is determined to get satisfaction.

A simple ploy of her devising ruffles major egos, spoils a few attitudes, trips this motley crew into reverse and ups the comic ante. The ending of the play is a trifle simplistic, but Williamson is never less than clever and can wield a scalpel that occasionally even turns comedy into satire.

He’s extremely deft with funny lines, less deft with structure, and Thorson’s Margaret is the only fully developed personality. She’s so sharply delineated, so agreeably brash and detached, so Lauren Bacall in her raised eyebrow look at life that we forgive and embrace the expedient of having her running commentary on the action.

She is ably supported by the actors in the company, all of whom forego the use of an Australian accent. It’s a wise decision. An accent is not important in this case and might have been a hurdle.

Director Michael Blakemore underscores the stylishly aphoristic aspects of the dialogue but is not able to overcome the interchangeability of some of the characters--most notably the wives, whose emotional plumage lacks distinction and, more significant, differentiation.

Responsibility for this shortfall lies chiefly with Williamson. Gross’ Peter is a bit too nebbishy as written and Justin something of a blowhard cartoon. The other men--self-important Conrad, egomaniacal Stephen and the wired Alex--have more definition, but dialogue being Williamson’s greatest strength, he relies on it to drive the play at the expense of character. It’s a high price to pay.

The result is an urbane production of an enjoyable play that stops just short of being a distinguished one.

* “Money and Friends,” UCLA James A. Doolittle Theatre, 1615 N. Vine St., Hollywood. Tuesdays-Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 and 7 p.m. (No Sunday evening performances after Feb. 7; Thursday 2 p.m. matinees begin Feb. 11.) Ends March 28. $33-$44; (213) 365-3500, (714) 740-2000). Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.

Linda Thorson: Margaret

Michael Gross: Peter

John McMartin: Conrad

Julie White: Jaquie

David Selby: Stephen

Lizbeth Mackay: Penny

John Getz: Alex

Lisa Banes: Vicki

Sean O’Bryan: Justin

A Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson presentation in association with Barry and Fran Weissler. Director Michael Blakemore. Playwright David Williamson. Sets and costumes Hayden Griffin. Lights Martin Aronstein. Sound Jon Gottlieb. Production stage manager George Boyd. Stage manager Tami Toon.