E-Mail This Article to a Friend FRANKIE AND JOHNNY ARE MARRIED

TV director/producer Michael Pressman (played by Pressman, a real-life TV director/producer) and his actress wife, Lisa Chess (played by Chess, in real life an actress and Pressman’s wife), decide to fulfill their long-cherished dream of mounting a small-theater stage production. Choosing as their vehicle Terrence McNally’s Off Broadway hit Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, the couple cast TV actor Alan Rosenberg (a real-life TV actor) opposite Chess, little suspecting the havoc that his big ego, bad temper, and refusal to learn dialogue will wreak on their modest project. The strength of this intelligent, entertaining comedy is its persuasive sense of character and social milieu. The interplay among its three leads is fascinating: Pressman’s producer, a man well paid to remain calm under pressure, quietly fighting not to turn into a cynic or a soulless pod; Chess’s actress, who’s so good and so much in demand as a wife and mother that she rarely lets on how dismayed she is at the ongoing disuse of her acting talent; and Rosenberg’s actor, who slowly reveals how much resentment and insensitivity fester behind his half-threatening, half-likable macho swagger. (95 minutes)