There’s no IP extra innately fitted to adaptation as a pure two-hander than the story of Adam and Eve, a narrative through which, initially not less than, there are no different characters, excepting the creator of the universe, who shortly will get relegated to a supporting function within the wake of extra fleshed-out human leads. Legendary tv scenarist Ed. Weinberger (the creator of “Taxi” and “The Cosby Present,” and a “Mary Tyler Moore Present” writing stalwart) has lastly achieved the plain and turned it right into a two-person play within the fashion of “Love Letters,” learn aloud from scripts, like A.R. Gurney’s extremely transportable, bare-bones mannequin. Weinberger’s tackle the world’s favourite creation fantasy, “The Journals of Adam and Eve,” premiered over the weekend with a really restricted run at L.A.’s 110-seat Garry Marshall Theatre, the place a complete of six audiences noticed that it was… good. (Apologies to the God of Genesis, nonetheless the tersest critic ever.)

How good? That is likely to be a little bit tough to precisely work out, or not less than take one other manufacturing with a distinct forged to guage. As a result of it’s almost unimaginable to separate how a lot of the nice and cozy glow being forged throughout the road from the Bob’s Large Boy neon was attributable to Weinberger’s wry script, and the way a lot of it was as a result of two different sitcom legends executing it, Hal Linden and Sally Struthers. Whoever bears the larger accountability for all of the collective good will, “Journals” goes past the naked necessities of an evening of Consolation Theater to turn into one thing that basically does really feel prefer it’s prepared for prime time, which is to say, a extra in depth engagement. Weinberger hasn’t misplaced his knack for the dynamics of comedy writing, veering between pleasing schtick and heartfelt philosophizing in kind of the appropriate measure. As for Linden and Struthers, who most likely may have gotten away coasting their manner by way of this staged studying, you can say they simply about knock it out of the park, this present about being knocked out of the backyard. They knock it out of Toluca Lake, not less than.

In this system notes, Weinberger acknowledges his paean to unique sin isn’t fully unique, admitting inspiration from “the nameless writers of Genesis, the poet John Milton in ‘Paradise Misplaced,’ and, in fact, Mark Twain.” One guess as to which of these three supplied essentially the most inspiration. The semi-irreverent brief tales Twain wrote within the early 20th century, ultimately collected as “The Diaries of Adam and Eve,” present a reasonably apparent template for what Weinberger is as much as right here: alternating between the couple’s barely Rashomonic viewpoints on the brand new world and one another; spoofing gender roles nearly to the purpose of burlesque, but additionally displaying respect for the poetry of the unique scriptural texts. The debt owed to Twain is a fairly enormous one, however in case you’ve gone again to his Adam and Eve tales recently, they’re intelligent but additionally a little bit belabored within the telling. The hour and 20 minutes that Weinberger and director Ben Donenberg (inventive director of the Shakespeare Heart of Los Angeles) have placed on stage, in the meantime, is brisk and breezy. It feels blasphemous to say that Mark Twain may’ve benefitting from having the creator of “Taxi” as an editor, or script physician, however there you’ve got it.

Linden will get to open the present alone, naturally, given his character’s preliminary solo flip within the highlight within the supply materials. He’s joined after about 10 minutes by Struthers, who, as Eve, has been secondarily created attributable to Adam’s piss-poor follow-through on exercising naming rights. Struthers seems a little bit dazed, rising on stage as an initially quiet, slowly comprehending new child, however she quickly has a pleasant, considerate passage through which she explains why animals — and folks — deserve extra dignity than to be named after their bodily traits or simply the odd sounds they make. (There hasn’t been this passionate a labeler of pigs, cows, et al. since Bob Dylan wrote “God Gave Names to All of the Animals.”) They argue a good quantity, which is okay, or there wouldn’t be a lot comedy right here. One of many issues they debate is whether or not God was telling the reality with the entire cope with a lady being created from a rib, with Adam reluctantly acceding to her skepticism, after he does a ribcage rely and comes up with the identical quantity as his associate. Anyway, it’s to the present’s credit score that it by no means turns into the B.C. version of “The Bickersons” that you just would possibly count on, or presumably dread. There’s a second late within the present through which Struthers utters the phrase “marriage” with a blissful sigh, and it’s clear that Weinberger’s chief intention might have been to script a salute to lawfully wedded bliss. (Or common-lawfully wedded, in Adam and Eve’s case, given the dearth of accessible officiants.) He’s a matrimony fan, in different phrases… even when the couple in his script does separate for a couple of hundred years, on the way in which to a contented ending for a narrative Genesis uncared for to wrap up.

The tenderness on this therapy is what lingers longer than any of the script’s Borscht Belt leanings. However it’s hardly shy of low humor, and it’d be a grave disappointment if the script didn’t lean arduous on sure ignoble firsts. Like Adam shedding his erection within the couple’s first fumbling try at consummation, and swearing, “This has by no means occurred to me earlier than.” Or one other event when Eve begins to marvel if Adam’s attentions is likely to be divided, and he responds with one other timeless line, sounding extra credible right here than it ever will once more within the millennia to come back: “There is no different girl.” The street out of Eden is paved with actual wit, and in addition silliness, which Struthers and Linden ship with the type of comedian timing that retains something like an precise groan at bay. Weinberger is much more of a sensualist than he’s a satirist, ultimately, and so he follows Twain’s lead in capturing that feeling that just about all the pieces bodily on this earth can really feel deeply bizarre, whenever you focus objectively on it, earlier than all these unusual animals or dangling physique components turn into pleasant once more.

Talking of delight, it’s arduous to overstate simply how pleasing it’s to see Linden and Struthers sharing a stage, in a manufacturing you’ll hope will get extra than simply this already-finished six-show run. Most attendees over the weekend have been most likely astonished to hit their smartphones afterward and lookup the truth that Linden is 92, and that we’re bearing witness to the uncommon event when somebody who was doing Broadway within the Fifties remains to be hitting the boards — with vigor. On the uncommon events that decision for him to bellow, it’s a robust sound. However what’s sweetest is that Weinberger and Donenberg don’t ask him to play a blowhard; Linden’s Adam is usually befuddled however by no means buffoonish. And Struthers doesn’t play Eve as a protofeminist born to place a person in his place… properly, perhaps a little bit, however to not the purpose of stridency. She’s an Eve to fall in love with, which is nice for the sake of fruitful multiplying, and in addition good for a manufacturing meaning to evoke actual emotion. It’s Struthers who will get to play actual grief, when issues go as they do with Cain and Abel… though, this present being as candy as it’s, she believes her son, when he says the fratricide was an accident, versus the Bible’s extra damning account.

In deserving a wider viewers, whether or not it’s in L.A. or off-Broadway, “The Journals of Adam and Eve” is a manufacturing that manages to scratch an itch that the latest Emmys telecast raised. On that prime-time particular, the producers introduced out a parade of trusted sitcom performing legends, to face proudly and briefly bask within the glow of recognition, on facsimiles of their sequence’ unique units (together with Struthers, becoming a member of Rob Reiner within the “All within the Household” lounge). However gags didn’t come included, or a lot of the rest, earlier than they have been whisked off once more. The gambit gave the Emmys a pleasant aura of nostalgia, however you couldn’t assist questioning: What if all these veterans may very well be given one thing to do?

Weinberger has definitely achieved that right here, for these two. Possibly they may mount “Journals” for a much less unique run, for the bigger viewers that may undoubtedly take pleasure in it, and make the Eden of seasoned professionals expertly doing their factor final just a bit longer.