Shrinking ‘Social Security’ Benefits

What a difference a stage makes.

At the Ahmanson Theatre in L.A., where big shows open with big expectations, Andrew Bergman’s “Social Security” in 1987 seemed like an awfully puny, spineless comedy; it didn’t even work as a diversion. It felt like a sitcom inside a giant hangar and underscored the need to scale down the Ahmanson while spiffing up the programming (both missions accomplished, incidentally).

At the intimate, slightly cramped Cabrillo Playhouse, the same comedy is a light, genial two-act about human unpredictability. Warm, easy-to-swallow stuff--and the acting isn’t even that terrific. How is this possible?

One reason is that Bergman meant this to be heard in a smallish room like the Cabrillo, where we might feel like we’re sitting in a corner of David and Barbara Kahn’s living room as their art-filled world gets turned upside down by Barbara’s oversensitive, overreacting, prudish sister Trudy (Chris Culver-Vibrans) and her husband, Martin (Ted Weiner).

Trudy announces that Mother must, absolutely must, stay with David and Barbara (Gene Fiskin and Joan Ray), who run a first-class Manhattan gallery and who frequently host world-class artists in their home.

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Trudy and Martin, who have been taking care of cantankerous Mom (Penny Radcliffe), feel compelled to go to Buffalo to check up on their daughter, whom they fear is sleeping with two men (Bergman indulges in some truly bad sex jokes).

Act 1 has the siblings going back and forth in the slightest of setups for Act 2’s comic follow-through. We side with David and Barbara, amazed at Trudy’s and Martin’s possessiveness over their daughter; but we also see that David and Barbara have had it pretty good while Trudy has had to carry the care-taking load. Bergman is making fluff here, but he remembers the good playwriting rule: Ensure that each of your characters has a case to make.

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Radcliffe’s Sophie is cantankerous, but not for long. She falls in love with David and Barbara’s dinner guest, 100-year-old master painter Maurice Koenig (Bill Carden), which throws everyone out of whack. Bergman’s romantic formula is just nutty enough to work as a contemporary fairy tale yet human enough to have real consequences.

This is a specifically Jewish family, but only Fiskin and Weiner get the ethnicity right. The women are too WASPy by half. The readings, under Stanford Manning’s direction, are generally too flat and wooden, undermining Bergman’s comic music.

Some charm does come through. Carden’s Maurice smiles and tips his glass to all his admirers; Radcliffe’s transformation into a classy lady is convincing. And Fiskin is every inch the art connoisseur, limited only by Bergman’s own lack of satirical punch. There even are some credible contemporary paintings on the walls of Ron Lance’s set, which is more than some community theaters would bother with.

* “Social Security,” Cabrillo Playhouse, 202 Avenida Cabrillo, San Clemente. Thursday-Saturday and June 19, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m. Ends June 22. $12. (714) 492-0465. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

Gene Fiskin: David Kahn

Joan Ray: Barbara Kahn

Chris Culver-Vibrans: Trudy Heyman

Ted Weiner: Martin Heyman

Penny Radcliffe: Sophie Greengrass

Bill Carden: Maurice Koenig

A San Clemente Community Theatre production of a comedy by Andrew Bergman, directed by Stanford Manning. Set: Ron Lance.