[NEohioPAL] Review of "The Sunshine Boys" at CVLT

[Bob Abelman]

Punch lines, not performances, sustain CVLT's 'Sunshine Boys'

 

Bob Abelman

 

News-Herald, Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times,

The Morning Journal, Geauga Times Courier

Member, American Theatre Critics Association 

 

This review will appear in the News-Herald 8/5/11

 

Many of playwright Neil Simon's comedies are populated with professional funnymen whose penchant for one-liners is an occupational hazard.  

 

His Laughter on the 23rd Floor features a room full of fast-talking, joke-jousting TV comedy writers.  In Brighton Beach Memoirs, the quick-witted lead character (who is also featured in Biloxi Blues and Broadway Bound) is an aspiring comedy writer.  Simon's 45 Seconds From Broadway takes place in a coffee shop that offers a steady flow of wise-cracking theater folk as its customers.  

 

For the two title characters in The Sunshine Boys, currently on stage at the Chagrin Valley Little Theater's River Street Playhouse, comedy is more of a way of life than an occupation.  In fact, comic timing is as instinctive and essential as breathing, and the cadence of a lifetime of professional burlesque is imprinted in every punch line that peppers their conversation.

 

Willie Clark and Al Lewis, formerly the vaudeville comedy team of Lewis and Clark, are still each other's straight-men despite having not seen or spoken to each other in 11 years.  After a long career in which they never got along, Willie and Al are coerced out of retirement by Willie's perpetually aggravated nephew and agent, Ben, in order to perform their classic comedy routine for a TV special.

 

Some of Simon's best writing can be found in The Sunshine Boys, for he has created a scenario where argumentation and the constant patter of jokes as delivered by true masters of the quip, the counter quip, and the double-take are natural occurrences.

 

Frank Mularo and Don Edelman, familiar faces on the community stage and elder statesman of the CVLT, know their way around a proscenium arch and have punched their share of lines.  Their appearance in The Sunshine Boys and the experience they bring to the roles of Willie and Al, respectively, could not be a better fit.  

 

Upon entering the stage, Mularo and Edelman are immediately charming and endearing. 

 

Yet, during their opening night performance, only glimpses of their obvious stage savvy are in evidence.  Their comic timing, and that of Steve Kay as Ben, is never on track due to the lingering lapses that occur between frequently misplaced lines.  Many of Simon's patented zingers get waylaid while waiting for cues to be picked up.

 

In fact, under Kate Tonti's direction, much of the evening's enterprise is slow, underplayed and not in synchrony with the playwright's intentions.  Lines like "don't shout," "don't get upset," and "calm down," directed at Willie, are not preceded by emotional outbursts or anything remotely demonstrative.  Without some sense of a heightened emotional state, there is not much to justify these lines, Willie's mild heart attack at the end of Act 1, or all that transpires in Act 2.

 

Only Willie and Al's reenactment of their classic comedy sketch, which is delightful, is energized.  A brief scene between a convalescing Willie and his take-no-guff nurse, played well Jackie Cassara, has some spark as well.  

 

Similarly out of sync is the set design which, appropriately enough, is not attributed to anyone in the playbill.  The sparse hodgepodge of furnishings and random wall hangings hardly fill the intimate stage.  Nor does it serve to resemble an old, decaying, cluttered New York City hotel apartment that has been occupied for over 40 years by a septuagenarian with a lifetime of show business memories and, one would think, memorabilia.  

 

Despite this production's lack of attention to detail, Neil Simon's sustainable handicraft comes through.  And, in those moments when Simon's comic genius is matched with that of Mularo and Edelman's, this The Sunshine Boys shimmers.  

 

Here's hoping for more of these moments in subsequent performances, and maybe a stack of discarded "Variety" magazines added to the mix. 

 

The Sunshine Boys continues through August 13 at the Chagrin Valley Little Theatre's River Street Playhouse in Chagrin Falls.  For tickets, which are $10, call 440-247-8955 or visit www.cvlt.org.
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