Wendy Wasserstein's ‘Old Money’ features dual roles, cleverness

The more things change, the more they stay the same — except they droop.

That’s the greeting card text I wrote 30 years ago.

My gag line again came to mind as I watched the Ross Valley Players’ new production of Wendy Wasserstein’s “Old Money.”

The play’s all about social climbing, generational gaps, moolah, art and real estate — with dual roles for each of the eight actors. But it feels stodgy and stilted despite the playwright’s renowned skill with barbed dialogue.

Her construct may be too clever, her play too New York.

Wasserstein invites us into a lavish mansion on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

There we witness two dinner parties.

Jeffrey Bernstein, an arbitrage kingpin played as a man of equanimity by Geoffrey Colton, hosts the first — at the beginning of the 21st century.

The second, nearly 100 years earlier, spotlights Johnny DeBernard as a boisterous robber baron, Tobias Pfeiffer.

Colton doubles as even-tempered retail tycoon Arnold Strauss, and DeBernard also personifies Sid Nercessian, a Tinseltown director who repugnantly spews an f-bomb every fourth word.

All the actors do well, no mean feat considering they’re burdened with a plot unnecessarily complicated and convoluted.

Director Kim Bromley admittedly struggled with the plotline complexities and mélange of Wasserstein characters (“I had to read it three times to grasp the scope of it,” she writes in the program).

She suggested opening night reviewers feel what the characters feel.

I couldn’t.

Perhaps because Wasserstein — known for her intelligent, independent but self-doubting female characters trapped by male power — thwarted me by pricking too many heavy subjects.

Relentlessly, she tackles youthful rebellion and self-destruction, aging and death, legacy and immortality, Jewishness and assimilation, platonic relationships and sexuality, snobbery and acceptance.

Which almost bury all her valiant attempts at humor.

The script of the two-hour, two-act comedy of manners, which premiered off-Broadway in 2001, immediately tells theatergoers what they’re watching — an examination of how new money becomes old money (and what impact that evolution has on its wealthy stakeholders).

The problem is that the theme gets underscored over and over.

Mind-numbingly.

A single summation, such as the scene in which Bernstein and Pfeiffer engage in a verbal mine’s-bigger-than-yours debate about influence, would have sufficed.

Striking, however, are spot-on costumes by Michael A. Berg that range from elegant to flamboyant and instantly allow audiences to know which characterization an actor in inhabiting, and a ideal set by Michael Walraven, replete with large paintings and a massive always-needing-polish wooden railing.

Wasserstein, who won a Pulitzer and a best play Tony in 1989 for “The Heidi Chronicles,” isn’t above contrasting schmaltziness and whimsy. Check out, for instance, her having one actor stylishly dance the Gavotte but later prance in a lobster costume.

The playwright’s signature one-liners are numerous:

• “If the rich aren’t happy, who the hell will be?”

• “I like the opera. Big girls with elephants. Isn’t that enough?”

• “I’m having trouble ignoring you tonight.”

Top-notch performances are turned in by Gillian Eichenberger as both silver-voiced servant and self-destructive daughter; Robyn Wiley, as outdated as the figure sculpted by her character, Auntie Mame-ish Saulina Webb; Karen Leland as strident publicist Flinty McGee; and Jesse Lumb as sons of both Bernstein and Pfeiffer (and part-time narrator).

Add to the mix Wood Lockhart, who may hold the record for most RVP performances and is wistful as Tobias Vivian Pfeiffer III, and Trungta Kositchaimmongkol, snarky as underwear designer Penny Nercessian.

“Old Money” has many amusing and edifying moments yet, in the final analysis, couldn’t excite me.

And it somehow felt both long and long in the tooth (though not quite as antiquated as Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s “The Rivals,” the 1777 play it references) — despite anachronistic references to Jennifer Lawrence and Silicon Valley.

If asked to stick my two cents in, I’d have to say earlier works by Wasserstein — who died of lymphoma at age 55 in 2005 — were much easier to bank on for laughs or insights.

The RVP recently produced some incredibly good entertainments.

This wasn’t their best choice.

“Old Money” will run at The Barn, Marin Art & Garden Center, 30 Sir Francis Drake Blvd., Ross, through Aug. 17. Night performances, Thursdays at 7:30, Fridays and Saturdays at 8; matinees, Sundays at 2. Tickets: $13-$26. Information: www.rossvalleyplayers.com or (415) 456-9555.