Theater Review—

Town Players Do Their Best With Simon As An Opener

By Julie Stern

Neil Simon is probably the most prolific, and most frequently performed purveyor of sitcom plays in America. He is particularly attractive to amateur theater groups faced with the eternal question of “what shall we do this year?” His plays offer enough parts to go around without making extraordinary demands, they call for sets within the abilities and supply range of the resident stage crew, and they promise enough laughs to ensure the local population will come and buy tickets.

This year The Town Players of Newtown have chosen to open their season with a vintage Simon work, Barefoot in the Park, and, under the practiced direction of Evelyne Thomas, it fills the above criteria successfully.

The premise of the play is that an attractive pair of young newlyweds is trying to settle into both married life and the Manhattan apartment they can afford – a sixth-floor walk-up studio on West 48th Street. Unlike Simon’s more autobiographical works (such as the Brighton Beach trilogy), the characters exist only for the situational gimmicks around which jokes can be built, which means they lack depth and coherence.

Thus the hopeful and devoted young wife of Act One is transformed into a whining, spoiled child, without any reason beyond the fact that her husband didn’t act silly when their upstairs neighbor got them drunk. Similarly the New Jersey mother, portrayed as a dreadful, present-laden, hyper-critical snoop, behaves like a resoundingly good sport and a wise friend, without undergoing any significant comeuppance in order to bring about the improvement. And the bizarre and unreliable upstairs neighbor becomes warm and fuzzy in order to provide an ending.

In fact, the only “personality” to remain consistent throughout the play is the apartment itself. Its sixth-floor location enables every entry onstage to be announced with lurching, staggering, coughing gasps, allowing the audience to rock with renewed laughter. The burbling noises and indifferent plumbing, the difficulty of fitting a bed for two people into what was meant to be a dressing closet, a leaking ceiling which allows snow to trickle down onto the couch, and the slanting multi-paned skylight and window through which characters can be seen groping their way across a slippery roof, all contribute to move the plot along to its unsurprising conclusion.

That said, the limitations in this Town Players production lie entirely with the play itself. The actors do a fine job, especially Becky Rodia Schoenfeld as the romantically impressionable Corie Bratter, and Louis Provenzano, who plays Corie’s long-suffering husband Paul while looking like Ben Affleck on good behavior.

Daniel J. Mulvihill, Jr brings plenty of exaggerated dash and swagger to the continental lecherous leech from upstairs, Victor Velasco, and Suzanne Kinnear has fun rolling her eyes and keeping a stiff upper lip as Corie’s mother, who didn’t ask to be fixed up with Victor on a blind date.

Steve Hoose does well as a wise and long-suffering telephone repairman who would rather not return to repair the phone when it has been ripped out, but does so anyway, delivering some kindly advice on marriage, and Gene W. Comerford, Jr makes for a tired looking old delivery man, even if he really isn’t (old, that is).

In a play where the Apartment is the Thing, Adam Sussman and Suzanne and Larry Kinnear have created  a highly believable sense of place, especially the snow-rimmed skylight.

If you like Simon you should enjoy this. However, while there were quite a few children in the audience on opening night, some of them seemed to find it confusing. It’s probably a better choice to take your parents, or your visiting in-laws.

(Performances continue on weekends until May 24, including a Sunday afternoon matinee on May 18. Call 270-9144 for ticket and performances details or reservations. Town Players’ Little Theatre is on Orchard Hill Road in Newtown.)