AS GOOD AS GOLD

Theatre 40 opens its 2021-2022 season with Marilyn Anderson’s As Good As Gold, a Hollywood satire not nearly as good as the solid gold cast who do their darnedest to make it shine.

Marie Broderick, Nicola Victoria Buck, and Wendy Hammers star as a trio of screenwriter friends unable to get a break in male-dominated Hollywood.

Broderick’s Maggie Carson can’t find a single studio willing to option even one of her scripts. Buck’s Karly De Haven has been optioned more than a few times, but nothing she’s written has ever made it beyond that. And Hammers’ Elaine Kurtz has just learned that that her latest effort, the true story of “a woman who can’t leave the house,” will only get shot if the lead is turned into “a guy who’s on the road.”

Frustrated with a world in which women are only allowed to appear opposite male stars as girlfriends, hookers, or mothers, (or hooker-mothers), and angry at studios only interested in sex, violence, and murder, the three friends come up with a plan.

Why not get together over a three-day weekend and write the kind of script that will actually get made, for example one about an ex-cop thrown off the force for having an affair with a nun who was really a Russian spy hiding in a convent.

So that’s what the three gal-pals do, and wonder of wonders, Hollywood’s biggest talent agencies love their script and everyone in town wants to produce it.

It takes nearly half an hour for playwright Anderson’s overpadded script to get to its raison d’être—the women’s decision to not only give their fictional male screenwriter a name (Adam Gold) but to advertise on Craigslist for an actor to bring him to life.

And it takes another ten minutes of auditioning some very bad actors for the women to discover their Adam in a shoe store, Midwest farm boy turned L.A. minimum-wage worker Jeffrey (Landon Beatty).

Indeed, it’s not until Act Two that we finally get to the play’s real nitty gritty:

Maggie, Karly, and Elaine may have created a monster.

If it’s not clear by now, As Good As Gold would be a whole lot better with a sharper focus and some savvy editing.

At the very least, the perfectly cast Broderick, Buck, and Hammers give it their all, and then some, under Ann Hearn Tobolosky’s earnest direction.

As for the men, Beatty’s aw-shucks farm boy turned egomaniac reveals real versatility following his memorable T40 debut as early-1930s movie star William Haines in the recent Taming The Lion, and it’s a treat to see Beatty reunited with that production’s Joan Crawford, the equally multifaceted Broderick.

Will Bradley dazzles in at least a dozen cameos and accents (and some hilarious Hollywood star impressions), Chance Denman’s chiseled face and physique in a series of amusing fantasy sequences make the talented newcomer one to watch, and David Westbay does well in his brief scene as hospitalized Hollywood exec Ed Mansfield, though that entire scene could easily be replaced by a twenty-second phone call.

There can be absolutely no quibbling about Jeff G. Rack’s spiffy living room set, one that transforms quickly and effortlessly into multiple locales thanks in large part to Brandon Baruch’s always strikingly effective lighting design, and Michèle Young’s costumes are fabulous as always. Perhaps best of all is T40 newcomer Nick Foran’s delightful sound design inspired by 1960s comedy film scores.

As Good As Gold is produced by David Hunt Stafford. Foran doubles as stage manager. Jean Franzblau is intimacy director. William Joseph Hill is fight choreographer. Philip Sokoloff is publicist.

I’m a big fan of behind-the-scenes Hollywood stories, and with some astute script doctoring, As Good As Gold might just hit the spot. Perhaps we could convince Maggie, Karly, and Elaine to give it a go.

Theatre 40, 241 S. Moreno Dr., Beverly Hills.
www.Theatre40.org

All audience members must be fully vaccinated and must present their official vaccination card (photocopy accepted) to the box office person when they arrive at the theater. Audience members must be masked indoors and temperature checks will occur at the box office.

–Steven Stanley
September 25, 2021
Photos: Michèle Young

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