Sex Good; Money Bad

What's sad about "Sex Good; Money Bad," though it's a pleasant night out, is the apparent decline in the quality of Michael Weller's writing. "Sex Good; Money Bad" is the collective title of two Weller one-acts: "Now There's Just the Three of Us" is from 1967, while "Rules for Write Play (So Not Getting Fingers Broken)" is dated 2010. The former is an evocative, sometimes hilarious look at the Summer of Love generation and its lustfulness; the latter is labored present-day whimsy.

"Three of Us," which must have been quite racy in 1967, depicts the aimless but sex-charged existences of young roommates Perry (Michael Vitaly Sazonov) and Frank (Jeff Ward), alternately sparring with and supporting one another. The dateless Perry thinks about women with the obsessiveness of a young Woody Allen or Philip Roth. Chicks, and that's what they're called here (Weller isn't very nice to women in either play), come easily to Frank. But he's an amateur compared to Deke (Ethan James Duff), who pretends to be a pal and fakes his way into their apartment, bringing with him sexually voracious Nancy (Halley Wegryn Gross), a not-so-dumb blonde in Goldie Hawn "Cactus Flower" mode.

Not a lot happens, but the joy of being young and broke and having a great randy time is infectious, and the small talk, taking in Erich Fromm, Simone de Beauvoir, and Corbusier, shows how much smarter audiences were presumed to be in the '60s. And Gross, who has the loudest offstage orgasm I've ever heard in a theater, is a delight.

She also charms in "Rules for Write Play" as the wary, not-so-smitten girlfriend of playwriting student Nick (Sazonov), whose unwisely managed poker debts have brought on Akim (Sam Tsoutsouvas), a Russian henchman who locks Nick in his dorm and threatens mutilation if payment isn't immediate. But Akim is fascinated by playwriting, leading Nick to indulge in a lot of metatheatrical "If this were a play" discourse. I've never met a metaplay I've liked, and this one not only keeps commenting on itself but has Nick being taught by a Professor Weller, a notable but minor playwright whose works are, just like Weller's, occasionally performed. The self-absorption quickly becomes tedious, though Weller does save up a nice twist ending.

Tsoutsouvas, a ham in the first play as a strutting government agent, also overdoes his Russian thug (he's not helped by Weller's Boris Badenov aren't-I-funny fractured English). Sazonov, playing an earnest nerd in both, doesn't vary his characterizations much, though when Nick finally realizes how he's messed up his young life (and comments on it in metatheatrical terms), he's touching.

The two directors (Tony Speciale and Drew DeCorleto, respectively) are more than competent, but Weller's text isn't pulsating with complexity or insight, and what's on stage plays like extended sketch comedy.

Presented by Broken Watch Theatre Company at WorkShop Theater Company, 312 W. 36th St., 4th floor, NYC. Dec. 8–18. Tue.–Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 3 and 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m. (212) 352-3101, (866) 811-4111, www.theatermania.com, or www.brokenwatch.org. Casting by Stephanie Klapper Casting.