Tim Neller is David and Claudia Teipel is Carolyn in the play “Riches.”
JOE IVERSON / Tulsa World

"Riches" by Lee Blessing -- the phrase almost sounds like a benediction, the sort of thing said at weddings to wish the couple a long and happy life.

Well, the couple in Blessing's "Riches," which opened Thursday at Heller Theater, has accomplished the long part of the conjugal life. David (Tim Neller) and Carolyn (Claudia Teipel) are spending this particular weekend at the hotel in Red Wing, Minn., where they spent their honeymoon 21 years ago.

They're here with David's business partner and his new trophy wife, and the Riches are getting ready to meet their friends for dinner. Those plans don't go quite right, however, and dinner's to be delayed for an hour or so. That gives the Riches just enough time to decimate a couple of decades of what appears to the rest of the world as wedded bliss.

Not immediately, of course. Each tries to make the most of the situation of being alone in a room with the spouse.

For David, that means trying to recall some honeymoon moments and perhaps engaging in a little honeymoon activity. For Carolyn, it's retreating into her book on "The Art of Friendship" when it's obvious that David isn't going to let her go to the hotel's bar to wait for dinner.

So David produces his surprise: an engagement ring, a talisman of the love he professes. Carolyn responds with a surprise of her own: "I want a divorce."

From there, "Riches" becomes a succinct depiction of the "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus" concept of human interaction.

David wants an explanation of what led Carolyn to make this statement, all the problems that might have accumulated and festered over the course of 21 years of togetherness boiled down into a few terse phrases, so that they can be dealt with and dismissed, and life as he knows it can continue.

It's not that easy for Carolyn, however. The sentences she comes up with are either metaphors that can't begin to express the enormity of her feelings, or pointed remarks that are incongruously funny ("I don't like your nose").

Before long, the conversation between the couple escalates to the point where they employ a means of communication that is at once brutally effective and horrifically inadequate.

"Riches" is Heller Theater's entry in the 2003 Oklahoma Community Theater Association's OCTAfest competition, being held next weekend in Ardmore. The requirements are that the play take one hour to present, and be performed on a stage set that can be set up and taken down in 10 minutes.

The audience attending Thursday night's opening got a chance to see the cast in crew in action, arranging a corner full of objects into a fair approximation of an anonymously cheesy hotel room somewhere in the tames of Minnesota (designed by Scott Heberling and Larry Latham).

They also got to see a pair of remarkably natural performances by Teipel and Neller.

David Rich is one of those people who never stops talking, who has gotten into the habit after years in the advertising business of wearing an audience down under a stream of pat words and catch phrases. Unfortunately, that's also what he listens for -- easy, comforting sound bites that echo what he's just said, to create the illusion of conversation.

He could be an infuriating character, but Neller infuses him with a boyish energy and a genial cluelessness that makes Da vid much more sympathetic. He's the only person who doesn't know he's out of his depth when it comes to dealing with matters of the heart.

Teipel makes the confusion, desperation, frustration and anger in Carolyn palpable without her ever seeming monstrous or pathetic. Carolyn knows what she needs to do, even if she can't express why she needs it, and Teipel makes you ache along with her.

Julie Tattershall's direction is crisp and unobtrusive, her blocking of the action economical and, in a series of shockingly violent exchanges between husband and wife, startlingly realistic.

"Riches" continues with performances at 8 p.m. Friday and 2 p.m. Sunday at Heller Theater, 5328 S. Wheeling Ave. The play is intended for mature audiences. For information, call 746-5065.

James D. Watts Jr., World entertainment writer, can be reached at 581-8478 or via e-mail at james.watts@tulsaworld.com.