GETTING THE BUSINESS IN 'FRANKIE AND JOHNNY'.

Byline: Evan Henerson Staff Writer

A VETERAN TV and film producer/director with stable work, a nice home and a devoted family gets the blockheaded notion to direct a production of a two-character play as a vehicle for his talented but opportunity-challenged actress wife.

A non-Equity production. In L.A., no less, where everybody in the industry - from well-known actors to studio heads - can watch the entire effort go up in flames.

Ever the trouper - or masochist. Take your pick - Michael Pressman not only survived the play, he went back and made a docudrama, opening today, about the experience. ``Frankie and Johnny Are Married'' - starring Pressman and his wife, Lisa Chess (playing themselves), and featuring a boatload of celebrity cameos from the David E. Kelley stable - proves to be a delightful little sleeper of a love story. It's as concrete an argument as any that creative types probably shouldn't be punching the same time clock as each other.

And I'll tell you what: Any audience member who has ever acted in or worked behind the scenes at a fewer-than-99-seat theater is going to be cringing in recognition over Pressman's depiction of Cynthia, the hugely inept theater manager, Sally the stage manager and particularly Alan Rosenberg, the leading man from Planet Scumbag.

A bit of background. ``Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune'' is a popular two-character play by Terrence McNally chronicling a fling that turns serious between waitress Frankie and short order cook Johnny. It's as sweet and honest a play as the often overrated McNally has ever written, and it became a movie, ``Frankie and Johnny,'' starring Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer. Pfeiffer is married to TV maven David E. Kelley, who, through shows like ``Picket Fences'' and ``Chicago Hope,'' appears to be Pressman's principal employer.

Kelley appears as himself in ``Frankie and Johnny Are Married.'' Pfeiffer does not, although she is often mentioned. At one point, Pressman asks Kelley how he and Pfeiffer ever manage to make things work. Kelley simply gives him an evil look and rolls up the car window.

Pressman enters the small theater waters with an optimism that would shame Candide. And he watches, in mounting horror, as the costs add up, Cynthia's (Jillian Armenante) screw-ups mount, and Rosenberg - the production's Johnny to Chess' Frankie - morphs from talented egotist into an abusive, clueless monster. Ever the diplomat, Pressman tries to referee, but he's caught between his duties as Chess' husband and her director.

The outcome will be left unrevealed, but since the film is called ``Frankie and Johnny Are Married,'' and since it's based on an actual production staged in L.A., you can take an educated guess at what happens after matters reach a head with Chess and Rosenberg. The play is nearly forced to close. But it doesn't.

Pressman, past 50, pudgy and balding, is nobody's conventional idea of a leading man, but his character so exudes honesty, charm and earnest naivete that he's impossible not to root for. With the exception of a silly dream sequence, Pressmen (who is the film's director and writer as well as its star) lets the humor develop from the situations rather than forcing laughs. His ability to get famous friends to tweak themselves on screen (Kelley, Les Moonves, Kathy Baker, Mandy Patinkin) is masterful. Here's also hoping Rosenberg makes a point of telling people that he is not the real-life actor who precipitated the ``Clair de Lune'' fiasco. He's an awfully convincing jerk.

As a love story, ``Frankie and Johnny Are Married'' quirkily parallels ``Frankie and Johnny,'' the play. A besotted man promises his beloved the moon. She reluctantly accepts the pledge he can't quite deliver. Somewhere between his dreams and her groundedness, magic happens. Even if it's in a tiny out-of-the-way playhouse where the program has been printed upside down.

Evan Henerson, [phone]

evan.henerson(at)dailynews.com

FRANKIE AND JOHNNY ARE MARRIED - Three stars

(R: language, a drug scene)

Starring: Michael Pressman, Lisa Chess, Alan Rosenberg, Jillian Armenante.

Director: Michael Pressman.

Running time: 1 hr. 38 min.

Playing: Landmark's Westside Pavilion.

In a nutshell: Hey honey, let's put on a show! And then let's get a divorce!

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Photo:

The stresses of mounting a local theater production in the entertainment industry's back yard are magnified for Michael Pressman, left, Alan Rosenberg and Lisa Chess in ``Frankie and Johnny Are Married.''