Key to the Past : A play about relationships before widespread AIDS awareness provides a contrast with dating today.

By JANICE ARKATOV

Sept. 4, 1992 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES; Janice Arkatov writes regularly about theater for The Times

When it premiered in 1982, Kevin Wade’s play “Key Exchange” was a timely treatise on contemporary relationships. In 1992, of course, it’s a whole different ballgame.

“When I read it, I was struck by how dated it was,” says Richard D. Scelfo, who is directing a revival of the three-character comedy, opening Thursday at the Whitefire Theatre. “1982 was pre-AIDS, before there was a huge awareness. The sexual mores were different; promiscuity was more accepted. So I like the contrast between the two decades. Audiences can say, ‘That’s where we were, this is where we are; there’s no going back.’ ”

Scelfo, 50, a Coney Island native, admits that he has a personal stake in the AIDS epidemic. “I’m happily married and don’t plan on having any extramarital excursions,” he said lightly. “But I am concerned for young people--like my 20-year-old daughter--who’ve come off the sexual revolution of the ‘70s and ‘80s, and are now having to relearn, retrench. It’s got to be disorienting and confusing.”

The play, which became a 1985 movie starring Brooke Adams and Ben Masters, takes place on nine successive Sundays on a bike path in Central Park, charting the romance of twentysomethings Philip and Lisa. Philip is unable to commit to a monogamous relationship. Patrick Dean, 29, who is co-producing the show with his wife, Linda, plays Philip, and was attracted to the material’s truths.

“When I read the play eight or nine years ago, I thought it was terrific--though I was too young to know what these people were going through,” he said. “But then you grow up, date, and the key-exchanging happens. It amazed me how right-on the author was. It didn’t have to be bikes in Central Park. This is a beautifully written play--dated, yes--but these things do happen. We could do it in 2001, and relationships will still be the same.”

He allows that tapping into Philip’s mind-set wasn’t much of a stretch. “Most men don’t want to commit,” Dean said. A Chicago native, he dropped his family name--Tanzillo--soon after coming to California and getting cast solely as Italian street guys. “I was like that. But my life has come full circle, and I’m a lot happier now.” He credits much of that to his children, Joey, 3, and Rosalie, 4 months.

“Kids growing up today don’t deserve to live in fear,” he said, referring to the threat of AIDS. “But that’s what they’re going to have to do until we find a cure. It’s not their fault. It’s our problem--and we have to straighten it out, bail them out.” For their part, the producers are donating all the proceeds of the staging to Elizabeth Glaser’s Pediatric AIDS Foundation, an organization Dean says, “We admire from afar.”

“We put our savings into producing this play, and we know we’re not going to get it back,” he said. “That’s not the point. We want to put something positive out there in the world; we want to help.” If a little proselytizing gets mixed in, Dean makes no apologies.

“How it was 10 years ago may not be the way,” he counseled. “Try to find someone you care about. And if you’re really committed to them, don’t just move in. Marry them.”

WHERE AND WHEN

What: “Key Exchange.”

Location: Whitefire Theatre, 13500 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks.

Hours: 8 p.m. Thursdays to Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays, until Oct. 11.

Price: $10.

Call: (818) 708-0960.