In "The Royal Family," playwrights George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber take Shakespeare's dictums that "all the world's a stage. And men and women merely players" and "the play's the thing" and apply it to a thinly-veiled send-up of the first family of theater, the Barrymores.

Only, in "The Royal Family," through Feb. 16, Pennsylvania Playhouse, Bethlehem, the Barrymores are called the Cavendishes and Kaufman and Ferber take liberties with the subject material by minimizing their accomplishments and maximizing their foibles.

The Cavendishes' upper east side Manhattan apartment in 1927 (the year the play premiered on Broadway) is the setting.

Fanny Cavendish (Marcy Hake Repp), the family matriarch (said to represent Ethel Barrymore), plans to come out of retirement and embark on a United States tour, including Ogden, Utah ("I sold out there in 1924," Fanny chortles.).

Fanny's son, Anthony Cavendish (played with churlish glee by Peter Sikalias), "America's foremost screen lover" (said to represent John Barrymore), arrives, fleeing a Hollywood film production in which he stars, a process server and legions of fans clamoring outside the apartment.

Fanny's daughter, Julie Cavendish (Kathy Patterson), has second thoughts about her stage career because of her suitor, Gilbert Marshall (Bob Bennicoff).

Fanny's grand-daughter, Gwen (Veronica Bocian), has a love interest, Perry Stewart (Peter Ryan Loikits), and also may put her theater career on hold.

The three-act play, with a run time of about two hours (including intermission), is briskly directed by Robert Callan Adams, who gets some wonderful performances from the energetic and game cast.

The actors rise -- or lower themselves -- to the material. There's a particularly fine scene between Fanny (Repp), Julie (Patterson) and Gwen (Bocian), which strikes at the heart of the play's bathos. Kudoes to Adams and these three female actors.

Adams also did the costumes, with wonderful flapper-era low waisted dresses for the women.

The set design by Tom and Pam Steigerwalt, who also did the lighting design, is substantial and includes such nice touches as a working chandelier, piano, handset phone, Victrola, furniture that evokes the era, numerous family portrait photos adorning the walls, and a vintage copy of Billboard magazine.

Fanny's bickering brother, Herbert Dean (Chip Rohrbach), and his strident wife, Kitty Dean (Shawn Kerbein) enter and depart on the whims of the playwrights whenever the plot needs flags.

Attempting to have plays produced, theaters booked and get the family out of the apartment and on the road to make him money is Oscar Wolfe (Donald M. Swan, Jr.), the Cavendish family's agent. Swan is effective, assaying the role in a state of suspended irritation.

Supporting roles include: Della (Bridget Fitzgerald), a fussy maid; Jo (Dale Beltzner), a festidious butler; McDermott (Tom Mattei), who seems to have no discernible function other than to charge up and down the apartment stairs as a surefire plot distraction. "Thrust, parry, pierce, exit," indeed.

"The Royal Family" cast is rounded out by a Chauffer (Paul Bonnici, who also plays a strange personage of uncertain ethnic origin, but certainly racist, named Gunga), and Miss Peake (Rachel Williams), a nursemaid.

"The Royal Family" was produced at a time when "theatah people" such as the Cavendishes looked down on motion picture actors. It's a quaint posit that makes little sense -- or comedy -- to contemporary audiences.

There are a few good zingers among the barbs and bon mots. Still, while the plot and circumstances should fizz, it too often fizzles. This is the antiquated theater of exaggeration, exasperation and the grand gesture.

The play was adapted for film as "The Royal Family of Broadway" (1930), directed by George Cukor and Cyril Gardner and starring Frederic March and Ina Claire.

"The Royal Family" is similar in construct to Kaufman's and Moss Hart's hilarious Pulitzer Prize-winning "You Can't Take It with You, (1936), which is more board-worthy on multiple levels. Kaufman's and Ferber"s "Dinner at Eight" (1932) and "Stage Door" (1939) are also more successful.

Some plays have a shelf life beyond which they should remain on the shelf and not be put back on the stage. "The Royal Family" is one of them.