‘Only Game in Town’ Presents Faded View of Vegas

All Vegas tales, like Frank D. Gilroy’s play “The Only Game in Town,” are locked into a specific era because Vegas reinvents itself roughly every decade. Warren Beatty’s “Bugsy,” for instance, represents Vegas in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s; Frank Sinatra led the Rat Pack through “Ocean’s 11” in the early ‘60s; and Martin Scorsese’s “Casino” is thoroughly ‘70s. In the ‘90s, things are either sleazy (“Showgirls”) or hopeless (“Leaving Las Vegas”).

“The Only Game in Town,” now in a revival at Actors Forum Theatre, is fixed exactly between “Ocean’s 11” and “Casino.” Gilroy sets up an interesting view on that place and time, but then fails to do anything interesting with it. Director Audrey M. Singer’s actors appear hard-pressed to give the creaky writing new energy.

It’s 1969, and Vegas has come to represent everything the counterculture detests. Gilroy seems to have sensed this when he wrote the play 27 years ago: His main characters, Fran (Deborah Sclar) and Joe (Don Scribner) are like stowaways on a ship going nowhere. He’s a mediocre piano player and addicted gambler, so he’s hooked on Vegas like a junkie. She’s a chorus girl living in one of the few places she can find employment.

Like Bugsy Siegel, Joe will blow everything on a hunch. He will give his love away blindly. He’s a Vegas archetype, addicted to such a point that his character defies logic, sending Fran into whiplashes of emotion.

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As written, Fran remains opaque. Though the entire action transpires in her apartment, she’s just along for the ride. She’s afraid of marriage, but that’s about all Gilroy reveals. Gilroy brings in her backstory in the form of her old (and older) lover, Thomas (Shawn Michaels). Now divorced, Thomas wants to sweep Fran off to a wedding in Europe. Sclar’s toughest moment in the show comes in convincing us that Fran can’t leave with this sugar daddy, but she fails because the writing rings false.

So goes the whole show--except for the closing scene that takes us deep into Joe’s scary, zigzag nature. Here, Scribner finally comes alive as an actor after two hours of tired, sometimes incoherent mumbling. Though Sclar can’t work up a chemistry with Scribner, she does have the presence of a gorgeous Vegas gal with a few years on her. Michaels is quietly powerful in his brief scene, when the play momentarily exudes a little menace and unease. But then, it goes away, just like this ‘60s Vegas.

DETAILS

* WHAT: “The Only Game in Town.”

* WHERE: Actors Forum Theatre, 10655 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood.

* WHEN: Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m.; Sundays at 7 p.m. through May 19.

* HOW MUCH: $15.

* CALL: (818) 506-0600.