Rona Jaffe’s 1958 best seller “The Best of Everything” certainly pressed a lot of hot buttons. Think “Sex and the City” set in the world of New York book publishing during the “Mad Men” era — in fact, it’s the book Don Draper’s reading in the series’ first season.
In her bold novel, Jaffe painted the private and professional lives of four young women with potboiler candor: From sexual harassment — they called it “flirting” back then — to booze, casual flings and a back-alley abortion, it’s the best and worst of everything. Prudish Hollywood toned down a lot of those details for an adaptation starring Joan Crawford, but the story’s so gripping that it still made a fascinating movie.
You can see how “The Best of Everything” would be ripe for the stage, but the young, enthusiastic team behind this new off-Broadway show seems to have bit more than it could chew. Their production has some nifty touches — like Daniel Urlie’s period wool suits and bullet bras — but overall the company’s a little too green for all this purple.
Julie Kramer, who adapted and directs, wisely steers clear of camp in this look at the obstacle course women had to negotiate in the 1950s.
Some, like recent Radcliffe grad Caroline (Sarah Wilson), must figure out how to land both a better job and a man.
For others, like office busybody Mary Agnes (Molly Lloyd), the path is more clear-cut.
“There are only two ways to live, the right way and the wrong way,” she explains. “If you live the right way you’re happy, and if you live the wrong way you’re miserable.”
For Mary Agnes, the right way means being a full-time wife and mother.
And then there’s Miss Farrow (Amy Wilson), a stern editor who’s still unmarried at the ripe old age of 36 and, perhaps unwittingly, sets Caroline on her climb up the editorial ladder.
Kramer tightened up the action by focusing almost exclusively on the office dynamics. So she cut one of the book’s big characters, divorced mom Barbara, and has a single actor, Tom O’Keefe, play several major parts, including dissolute editor Mike Rice and lecherous boss Mr. Shalimar.
Bad decision: This makes the production look amateurish, and doesn’t give the women enough worthy foils to play against.
Still, while Kramer misses out on the big dramatic flares, she’s much better at capturing the world of work, especially the secretaries’ banter.
Some of the best moments simply are of the young women confronting the gaps between their dreams and their actual options. Lloyd proves to be a keen comedienne in those scenes. Watch, too, for Alicia Sable, whose ingenue character, a Colorado transplant named April, grows from wide-eyed innocence to sexy self-possession. She’s certainly making the best of something.