THEATER AND FILM/Jan Herman : ‘Social Security’: A Marriage of Borscht Belt Gags and TV Sitcom

While cultural snobbery is hardly the central subject of Andrew Bergman’s “Social Security,” the comedy that opened over the weekend at the Grand Dinner Theatre in Anaheim, it certainly is the main joke.

Art world sophisticates David and Barbara Kahn, who own a Manhattan gallery and live in swank digs on the Upper East Side, are set against Barbara’s sister, Trudy Heyman, and her accountant husband, Martin, a pair of schleps from Long Island who wouldn’t know a cubist from a knish.

The result is the stage equivalent of a TV sitcom ladled out in Borscht Belt gags--mostly about sex, frequently about food and money, but always with reference to suave cosmopolites, serene in their enlightenment, being put upon by dumpy suburbanites without a clue.

The idea that the adoration of modern art confers social superiority, not to say material wealth and moral worth, is so ripe for satire even the movies have gotten around to it. Witness Alan Rudolph’s “The Moderns,” which unfortunately missed the mark by being deadly solemn.

“Social Security,” on the other hand, is merely deadly. Granted, there are plenty of stabs at being wittily au courant . And Bergman is far from a slouch at writing comedy, having scripted “Blazing Saddles” and “The In-Laws,” among other movies. But no matter how trendy this show strives to be, its basic material seems as dated as the Hula-Hoop.

Risque punch lines about the sexual liberation of Trudy’s and Martin’s overprotected daughter--who is away at college and said to be living with two men “in a menagerie,” according to her befuddled father--sound at least a decade old.

Worse, you could probably measure the age of the universe with the gags about “bazooms,” “gefilte fish” and “Macy’s white sales.”

Lee Meriwether, who gets top billing, looks as beautiful and svelte as ever in the role of Barbara, which Marlo Thomas originated on Broadway 2 1/2 years ago and Luci Arnaz played in a national touring production last year at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles.

This Equity scale dinner-theater version gains little from Meriwether, however, except some dubious marquee value. Her range of expression runs the gamut from A to B. She grimaces to show frustration and smiles for everything else.

A program note says the former Miss America (1955) studied acting with Lee Strasberg. It also lists “Namu, the Killer Whale” and “Batman” among her favorite movie credits. Eight years on TV as co-star of the detective series “Barnaby Jones” must have warped Meriwether’s technique.

Her real-life husband, Marshall Borden, co-stars as David, a bit of a skirt chaser who excuses his flirtations as part of the “professional charm” required in a 57th Street art gallery owner. Borden carries off the role--a caricature, as are all the others roles--by chewing the scenery. Thus buoyed, his scenes with Meriwether are kept from collapsing totally into blandness.

The real stars of the show are Zale Kessler as Martin, Sheila Ochs as Trudy and Fritzi Burr as Sophie Greengrass, the demanding elderly mother of the two sisters who is deposited with her metal walker at Barbara’s door near the end of the first act and stays over to dominate the second. Rounding out the cast, Aaron Heyman plays Maurice Koenig, a famous 100-year-old painter invited to dinner.

Kessler, who is bald and stubby as a fireplug, gets one of the bigger laughs of the evening simply by walking around like a phlegmatic penguin with hiccups while goggling the abstract paintings on the walls of the Kahns’ apartment. Burr pretty much stops the show when she disrobes before dinner and poses like a beauty queen in her corset.

Because nothing in the play is meant to be taken seriously, it is churlish perhaps to demand a semblance of reality. Still, the humor would have had more snap if Meriwether and Borden could convince us that they are Jewish, upwardly mobile New Yorkers. They seem neither.

While the costumes were fine, the set design lacked a certain panache. It would have been nice to have believed that the Kahns’ apartment really was a swank affair and that the paintings were more than meager squiggles.

‘SOCIAL SECURITY’

Produced by Franklin J. Wyka and presented by arrangement with Tams-Whitmark Music. Directed by Jack Bunch. With Lee Meriwether, Marshall Borden, Sheila Ochs, Zale Kessler, Fritzi Burr and Aaron Heyman. Set by Don Ertell. Costumes by Laura Stamatakis. Lighting by Christopher Hardt.Performances: Tuesdays through Sundays. Tuesday, Wednesdays and Thursdays: curtain at 8:15 p.m; doors open at 6 p.m.; dinner from 6:30 to 7:45 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays: curtain at 8:45 p.m.; doors open at 6:30 p.m.; dinner from 7 to 8:15 p.m. Sundays: curtain at 7:45 p.m.; doors open at 5:30 p.m.; dinner from 6 to 7:15 p.m. At the Grand Dinner Theatre in the Grand Hotel, 7 Freedman Way, Anaheim. Through September. Tickets: $23.50 to $32. Discounts for seniors (through Sept. 7) and children. For information and reservations, call (714) 772-77710.