‘d girl’ Sharks: Funny as Well as Deadly

A battle is raging for the soul and body of Julie Rosen (Jennifer Crystal). At the age of 25, she is the new director of development at Glinkman Entertainment. Should she swim with the sharks? Or should she seek safer ground?

Roger Kumble presents Julie’s problem in stark terms in “d girl,” at Century City Playhouse. The sharks, played by David Schwimmer of “Friends” fame and Andrea Bendewald, are deadly. The safer ground is perhaps unrealistically appealing. Julie’s dilemma looks about as difficult as that faced by the sap in a horror film who stupidly returns to the darkened house alone and unarmed.

However, these sharks are funny as well as deadly and they have a few moments where they even arouse a trace of sympathy.

Schwimmer’s hack screenwriter, who’s making a pitch on this particular morning with Julie and her boss, is drugged-up and crass and lecherous, but hilariously so. He convincingly deceives himself that he wants Julie not only as a notch on his belt but also as a potential lover.

Bendewald plays Julie’s boss as a terrible screamer and manipulator, but she also has a sly wit. And when she honestly confronts her problems with men, we see that she’s hardly as smug as she looks.

The character who’s beckoning to Julie from the shore isn’t as richly dramatic. Her pediatrician boyfriend (Tom Hodges) urges her to return with him to New York, where she might be able to land a high-profile publishing job. Judging from this play alone, you would get the impression that all New Yorkers are like this sane and friendly doc (couldn’t he at least have worked on Wall Street?), that there are no sociopaths or tyrants in New York or in publishing.

Still, Kumble’s goal is to savage Hollywood, and as writer and director he mercilessly succeeds. At least in his depiction of the industry’s women, he certainly tops his famous predecessor in the league of Hollywood-bashing playwrights, David Mamet (whose movie-biz satire “Speed-the-Plow” is playing just a few miles away at the Odyssey).

Crystal handles well the delicate task of making the title character more than a sap. Her Julie knows what’s going on, but she’s young enough to think that she might be able to make a difference. Despite the limited scope of his role, Hodges suggests a genuine romantic connection between his character and Julie.

Joe Dietl has a few wonderful moments as an unpaid intern and all-around punching bag who pathetically hopes to carve out a career through his contacts at Glinkman. And Kristen Palmer, as a secretary, is another vivid example of the agony of Hollywood servitude. Tom Buderwitz’s set looks like the office a “d girl” might inhabit.

On opening night, a host of celebrities and paparazzi showed up at this scathing attack on the culture that feeds them. Can a little play help make Hollywood more humane? It’s worth a shot.

* “d girl,” Century City Playhouse, 10508 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles. Wednesdays, Saturdays, Sundays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 10:30 p.m. Ends April 20. $16. (213) 660-8587. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.