If you’ve been around for 55 years you’re bound to look and
sound a bit different than when you first saw the light of day. Once you were
cute and cuddly but now, well, it all depends. Such is the case with Neil
Simon’s “Barefoot in the Park,” the current production at the Sharon Playhouse.
On Broadway, it ran for 1,530 performances and was Simon’s biggest hit, and it
didn’t hurt that a young Robert Redford played one of the leads. The Sharon
production, directed by Clayton Phillips, is professional and, at moments,
quite engaging, but the play itself, despite the outstanding cast, is no longer
cute and cuddly. There’s some joint creaking and wrinkles in the show and what
might have drawn uproarious laughter five-plus decades ago now often elicits
little more than a wan smile.
The premise is sitcom simple: a young couple, Corrie
(Rebecca Tucker) and Paul (Craig Bryant Belwood) has just moved into a
Manhattan apartment. The only problem is, it’s five (or six, if you count the
stoop) flights up, a fact that provides one of the play’s running jokes: to
climb the stairs is exhausting -- funny the first time it’s used as the
telephone man (John Champion) staggers in, but it does become a bit old. Corrie
is a free spirit, or at least as free a spirit as Simon could conceive of in
the early 60s, while Paul, a lawyer, is buttoned-down. And…well…the play is
about this young couple, over the course of several days, learning to adjust to
each other’s personalities and quirks as they are visited by Corrie’s mother,
Mrs. Banks (Susan Cella) and a flamboyant neighbor, Victor Velasco (Rex Smith).
The problem, not with the production but with the aging
play, is that a lot has transpired in the past five or so decades and the
problems, such as they are, that this young couple face seem, viewed with eyes
that have seen everything from the sexual revolution to #MeToo, somewhat
superficial.
That being said, there’s no faulting the cast, which does
everything it can to bring life to this old comedic war horse. First there’s
Tucker, who doesn’t stop moving throughout the entire evening – she’s a visual
definition of effervescence. She prances, she pouts, she, at moments, plays the
sex kitten and does a great job when the script calls for
Corrie to be just a bit tipsy. Playing against her, Belwood is sufficiently
upright and handles his character’s befuddlement at some of the goings-on with
nuance and understatement. The two work well together, no more so than in the
extended argument scene, when the rational gives way to the irrational. If
there’s any part of Simon’s play that is timeless it is this, for I would
suggest that the rise, crescendo and falling off of a couple’s argument style,
complete with door-slamming, hasn’t changed over the decades, and Tucker and
Belwood get it just right. It’s the high point of the evening.
Then there’s Cella as Mrs. Rose, a role that has become
somewhat stereotypical, that of the intrusive mother-in-law (think Endora in
“Bewitched”). However, Cella doesn’t settle for the stereotype, but creates a
fully-fleshed lady of a certain age with style, flair and a great sense of
timing. Her best moments are with Smith as the aged lothario Velasco. Her she
uses controlled body language to convey her character’s hesitancy about
associating with this man. Finally, Smith must tackle an essentially
one-dimensional role, one that might tempt an actor to “ham it up.” Smith
refrains from doing this, occasionally allowing the audience to see his
character’s insecurity behind the façade of bravado.
Most of the play’s first act is sustained by the running
joke and what seems like an extended amount of exposition not only to establish
the characters but to drive home the situation. In essence, beyond the
stair-climbing, not much really happens, a point that was reinforced by the
audience’s reaction when the lights came up for the intermission – no one
moved. More was expected. In fact, the ushers had to announce that it was, in
fact, an intermission.There have been tectonic societal changes since Simon’s play premiered in 1963, and those changes can’t help but affect the audience’s response to the play. Back then there may well have been unbridled, continuous laughter but the Playhouse audience was often silent, save for one man who found just about every line hilarious – his barking laugh became just a bit annoying. As the first act somewhat tediously crawled towards the intermission I glanced at those sitting around me – they often looked like they were watching an Ibsen play about marital strife – intent yet somehow expecting more than what Simon has given them.
“Barefoot in the Park” runs through August 12. For tickets call (860) 364-7469 (ext. 201 in the summer / ext. 100 in the winter) or go to http://sharonplayhouse.org/theatre/tickets/
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