Somewhere inside Rachel Atkins’ “Money Changes Everything” there is either a pretty good stage play or a nice fat check for the option on a screenplay. Good luck on the option, but for now the focus should be on paring down an overlong, unwieldy script that’s trying way too hard to look like a fast-paced movie while largely neglecting the insightful patience of the stage.

I can give MCE a modest recommendation because of its inherently fascinating story, and, oddly enough, the fact that the production tries so hard to tell it in such a laboriously wrong-headed way. I’ve never seen a play with so many problems that was so much fun to watch.

The first half hour of the first act promises something out of the ordinary, a bank robbery story that centers on the criminals’ motivations instead of the mechanics of the job (the notorious Loomis Fargo “hillbilly heist” of 1997 in Charlotte, North Carolina). The two central plotters, Lou and Kevin, touchingly evoke the helplessness of people already imprisoned by lower class desperation. The phrase “eight dollars an hour” has never been more dismal. It’s heartbreaking to see the two almost instantly hand complete control of the scheme to a career criminal (Laurence Hughes as the loathsome Dewitt) who will confidently propel them to certain failure.

It’s also heartbreaking to listen to overblown Southern accents that are bad enough to make you hear the twanging of a jaw harp. (Yes, ma’am, I’m talking to you, Candy.) Director Dan Morris should rein in about half of the hillbilly hysterics.

Most of the early emotional inertia is quashed by a determination to explain every detail of the crime and its aftermath. Over the remaining two hours (the first act is a whopping 90 minutes, the second 60) there are many single-character asides framed as appearances on a “20/20”-type show called “Frontedge.” These post-prison interviews don’t contribute much beyond, “I sure wish I’d done things differently.” There are many disconnected scenes that could be coherently compressed into longer ones such that emotions could simmer instead of constantly boil over.

Brandon Ryan starts off well as Kevin, the Loomis Fargo inside man, showing the violence of thought that can lurk within a seemingly bland anonymity. But the shortness of the scenes force his character to set loose madness far too soon and far too often. Ryan sustains a fever pitch of flailing frustration that quickly becomes tiresome. Fortunately, in the very last scene Ryan somehow pulls a rabbit out of a hat and shows us a crippled soul who seems to be proud that he has so clumsily engineered his own doom.

Lisa Branham is the true standout as Lou, the scheming mastermind. She’s just clever enough to seduce one man, just dumb enough to let herself be controlled by another. Branham is always in complete control of the play’s most complex character, shifting quickly from self-pity to amorality. In her best scenes she embodies cruelty and fear simultaneously, quite a feat and a joy to watch. If Atkins had made Lou the true spine of the story Branham would have had the part that her talents deserved.

Many scenes involving two FBI agents could stand to be removed altogether. They only exist to remind us that a crime of legendary scale is being committed, but their many brief, overly similar chats continually deflate the tension. It’s more fun to hear about the overwhelming windfall from the yokels themselves, along with their mediocre vision of how to spend it: minivans, breast implants and jet skis. It’s also damaging that the demeanors of the FBI agents are wildly unrealistic. Nobody graduates from Quantico with a Boss Hogg bellow or a bebop beard.

The only essential FBI scenes involved Devin Rodger as Becky, Kevin’s hapless wife. Rodger is a real standout (also portraying two other minor characters), investing her short appearances as Becky with stunning emotional clarity in an otherwise underwritten part. I wanted to see a lot more of both the character and the actor.

A motion picture can produce flashbacks, flash forwards and multiple threads of parallel action with a snip of the scissors or click of the mouse. Watching stage actors attempt these effects by lugging their own furniture and props on and off the Annex stage – at least twenty times, I lost count – became grindingly tedious. A majority of scenes seemed to be in the two to three minute range, supplying bits of plot in dribs and drabs but with little emotional build up or consequence. The Annex stage is large enough for the FBI desk and that damned couch to remain onstage most of the time, and this alone would eliminate a few blackouts.

My hope is that the director will conspire with the author to edit and speed up this story considerably. A much better play is lurking in there, just like a big block of fifties inside a Loomis Fargo vault.

Streamlined since last weekend, “Money Changes Everything” is now a tighter show, and much more enjoyable. There is a real sense of inertia in the first act as the plotters of the poorly conceived Loomis Fargo “Hillbilly Heist” of 1997 go into overdrive to break the speed limit on bad planning. There is a fairly complex collision of personalities in Rachel Atkins’ script, and aspects that were somewhat hidden by clunkiness are now easier to appreciate.

The logic (if you could call it that) of Mitch Dewitt, the career criminal who makes everyone’s dreams a reality, particularly benefits. He is portrayed by Laurence Hughes with what seems to be autobiographical fluency, planning things (barely) with the same ease that he would put into stealing drugs from a Walgreens. His heedless can-do American spirit comes with a slouchy southern accent, but that spirit is essentially identical to the Wall Street criminality that produced the current recession. There is a coolly corporate efficiency in his willingness to hurt people in order to get the job done the right way, his way.

However, it is still Lisa Branham and Devin Rodger who provide the moments of deepest emotional transparency. They understand – much sooner than any of the guys – just how badly things are going to turn out.

Although the second act still suffers from unnecessary character asides (in the form of television interviews) it has gained a superior performance by Brandon Ryan. Kevin (the initiating schmuck) has moments of frustration and rage that are now more carefully modulated, grounded in a real human instead of a cartoon. His growing sense of fear in the second act is palpable.

So go see it! I have a feeling that “Money Changes Everything” will have a life far beyond Seattle, and you’ll be able to say that you saw it here first.