BY MICHAEL SOMMERS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

Folks who complain that little actually happens in Horton Foote’s dramas about Texas townspeople should get a look at the author’s “The Old Friends,” which premiered on Thursday at Signature Theater.

A story of youthful romantic rivalries that heat up again twenty-odd years later in 1965, the two-act play climaxes in a drunken housewarming party that sees a living room wrecked, costly jewelry thrown around and gunfire going off with murderous intent.

Foote, who died in 2009, is said to have rewritten “The Old Friends” over several decades. This latest version of the play dates from the early 2000s.  However much the playwright may have revised his work, the result is an agreeable soap opera with a complicated backstory and melodramatic trimmings.

While the play scarcely represents Foote at his poignant best, it still proves to be an enjoyable dark comedy about bad marriages and worse behavior. A spirited company led by Hallie Foote and Betty Buckley as contrasting widows vying for the same man’s affections lend distinction to the play.

After many years abroad, the genteel Sybil (Foote) returns to her Harrison hometown with her flop of a husband only to see him drop dead at the airport.

Temporarily lodged with her brittle sister-in-law Julia (Veanne Cox), whose marriage to Albert (Adam LeFevre) is miserable in spite of their wealth, Sybil soon secures a job, rents her family’s rundown former home and prepares to forge a new life.

But nice Sybil runs afoul of noxious Gertrude (Buckley), a rambunctious moneybags whose erstwhile brother-in-law and current business manager Howard (Cotter Smith) was once Sybil’s beau.

Correctly fearing that Sybil is reawakening romantic feelings in Howard – who Gertrude wants to wed, although he is obviously sick of her alcoholic rampages – Gertrude does her damnedest to persuade Sybil to leave town.

Others involved in the fracas include Sybil’s elderly mother-in-law Mamie (Lois Smith), who frets about mistakes she made long ago and Tom (Sean Lyons), a decent youngster drawn into a fling with the reckless Julia.

A comedy that underlines how money can’t buy happiness, “The Old Friends” is slighter in texture and less subtle than other Foote plays as it incidentally recalls a sweeter past in the bleary light of dissolute living. (I wonder how it might register done in rep with a revival of “Only the Heart,” Foote’s 1944 drama that tells how the avaricious Mamie arranged Julia’s marriage.)

Director Michael Wilson and set designer Jeff Cowie are seasoned hands at staging Foote’s works – they did Signature’s fine “The Orphans’ Home Cycle,” among others – and they aptly deliver a well-paced, straightforward account of the play done with three modest settings.

Making a rare dramatic turn as the diamond-dripping Gertrude, Betty Buckley might depict this lush lady more for comedy but chooses instead to bluntly portray a dame befuddled by booze. Hallie Foote is pitch-perfect as the quiet, surprising resourceful Sybil. Their cat-and-mouse sessions are fun to observe.

Veanne Cox (who is sharply dressed by David C. Woolard), makes a desperately stylish, dissatisfied Julia. Cotter Smith seems very clean-cut as Howard in spite of what other characters say of him.  Authentic as always as the anxious Mamie, Lois Smith provides a darling little drunk bit in the midst of a joyless house party that suddenly goes out of control.

“The Old Friends” continues through Oct. 6 at the Pershing Square Signature Theater Center, 480 W. 42nd St., New York. Call (212) 244-7529 or visit www.signaturetheatre.org.