ARNAZ & LUCKINBILL STAR : ‘SOCIAL SECURITY’ NOT AS SECURE AS IT SHOULD BE

Andrew Bergman summed up what’s wrong with his play “Social Security” (at the Ahmanson) in a line in the second act:

“Things happen, people evolve, and all we do is comment on everything.”

It’s too true, and it’s spoken by Barbara (Lucie Arnaz) to husband David (Laurence Luckinbill), the play’s ostensible leading characters. These characters don’t lead; they follow.

Most of the script is nothing but Barbara and David’s joke book about the peripheral characters’ crises. Their own problems are paltry--and so quickly and painlessly resolved that they would hardly count as problems in most people’s lives.

Barbara and David are wealthy Manhattan art dealers, who spend the first act commenting on the parental tribulations of Barbara’s shlumpy suburban sister (Evalyn Baron) and her mild-mannered husband (Robert Ott Boyle). Then, just before intermission, the sister dumps their difficult old mother (Mary Louise Wilson) on Barbara’s doorstep for a month.

Perhaps this is Bergman’s idea of a crisis, for he does devote a scene to the unsurprising spectacle of mother and daughter getting on each other’s nerves. But then, halfway through the month, David brings home a venerable Chagallesque artist (Arthur Tracy), who whisks the old woman into an unlikely love affair at his home in the South of France. So much for that crisis.

The thought of her mother having so much fun makes Barbara wistful--for about two minutes--about the lack of passion in her own marriage. Then her hubby turns on a waltz, and the smooching starts. Bye-bye, wistfulness.

Meanwhile, troubles continue to mount for the sister and her husband. Suddenly, when the play is almost over, we learn that these two have a very rocky marriage. Because Bergman hadn’t previously suggested any such thing, the revelation comes off as a writer’s maneuver, designed to make the poor sister look even shlumpier and sadder in contrast to Barbara and their rejuvenated mother.

Not only is Bergman mean toward the subsidiary sister, who exists only to be scorned and then pitied, but he does no favors for his leading characters by letting them off so easily. Without any genuine conflicts, histories or distinctive traits, Barbara and David are terribly hollow. The actors must work very hard to find anything interesting about them.

It’s easier for Arnaz than for Luckinbill; at least she has the one scene in which she and her mother snipe. Arnaz appears to be at home in the role; only later do you realize how thin her material is.

With Luckinbill, the strain is apparent from beginning to end. It’s bad enough that David is one-dimensional, but Luckinbill hasn’t mastered even that one dimension. A big man who looks solid and authoritative, he is miscast as a frenetic urban wisecracker. But he chooses not to hold back; instead, he plunges headlong into the wisecracks, laughing at his own jokes, smirking, mugging, shouting.

One wonders if director Peter Lawrence encouraged the ham in Luckinbill; certainly no one seems to have discouraged it. Or maybe Luckinbill thought the enormous size of the Ahmanson demanded broad playing. Yet the other actors, most of them trapped in standard stock roles, don’t seem daunted by the big theater. Even Boyle, whose character is resolutely soft-spoken, registers without blowing his performance out of proportion.

Wilson handles the mother as well as can be expected, and Ann Roth’s costumes cleverly underline her drastic change of mood. Yet this Jewish mother is stuck with one line after another which point to the poverty of the text even as a comedy routine. When she meets the famous artist, she reveals that her late husband was a painter, too--a house painter. Variations of this knee-slapper have been around as long as paint.

Tony Walton designed an apartment that you might expect rich art dealers to live in--with one curious exception. The dining room consists of a tiny table and four chairs stuck carelessly near the living room window. At last--a problem for David and Barbara: With such a dining room, how will they ever make it into Architectural Digest?

‘SOCIAL SECURITY’

A play by Andrew Bergman at the Ahmanson Theatre, presented by Zev Bufman and Pace Theatrical Group. Director Peter Lawrence. Set design Tony Walton. Lighting Marilyn Rennagel. Costumes Ann Roth. With Lucie Arnaz, Laurence Luckinbill, Arthur Tracy, Evalyn Baron, Robert Ott Boyle, Mary Louise Wilson. Plays Tuesdays through Saturdays at 8:30 p.m.; Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m. Closes June 20. Tickets $10-$33. 135 N. Grand Ave. (213) 410-1062 or (714) 634-1300.