When John Ford Noonan’s two-woman show “A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking,” now being performed by Ten Bucks Theater in Brewer, played in New York City in 1980, it was a runaway hit. Susan Sarandon and Eileen Brennan had rehearsed the piece with the playwright and had put their own marks on the comedy about an unlikely bonding between two suburban women.

Still, there’s not much to the story. Maude Mix lives a regimented and sterile life in which she nearly has to schedule each breath she takes. Hannah Mae Bindler shows up for impromptu cups of coffee and conversation. The two meet, in a manner of speaking, over the fence in Westchester County. It’s a little bit Felix and Oscar, and a little bit Mary and Rhoda.

Surely, the early production was a success for three reasons. First, the actors. Next, anything gal-pal was hot. And finally, New York loves a play about itself.

But more than 20 years later, the play is sadly dated, more of a museum piece than a tract about girl power. Some of Noonan’s lines are still funny. But mostly this play is a backward look at a time that you might not feel compelled to reconsider.

All that aside, Elena Simpson, as Maude, and Catherine LeClair, as Hannah Mae, deliver a whole lot of laughs. Because the script is so drippingly retro, the show needs a considerable comic talent such LeClair’s, whose wild outfits alone carry star power. She overpowers the stage with Southern charm and cheery alacrity – plus she shows real depth in a character that could easily be played as a cartoon. Simpson, whose role is, in part, more reserved, resorts to glares and harumpfs too often, but she more than makes up for this in her cut-loose scenes.

As director, Volock is straightforward and focused. But lengthy scene changes hold back the flow of the evening, which, coming in under 90 minutes, could easily be run without an intermission. It’s those wacky costumes that undoubtedly require extra time between scenes – and no one would want to lose them. Still, the pauses drag on a little too long.

Volock’s biggest challenge, however, is the last scene, which dribbles rather than shoots for the final points.

You may not understand why anyone would resuscitate this tale of women’s lib in the burbs. Then again, this is a fine vehicle to show off the talents of a coupla chicks moving around acting.

Ten Buck Theater Company will present “A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking” at 8 p.m. Sept. 21 and 22 at Brewer Middle School. For information, call 990-4940.