Citrus County Art Center Theater Barefoot in the Park
One of my favorite things about being a theatergoer is having the chance to see new productions of favorite plays. Unlike the movies, where the discussion "remake" ordinarily spells creative disaster, revivals of popular theater favorites requite directors and actors the opportunity to put their own postage on iconic productions and roles, and playgoers the chance to revisit favorite characters and situations—with a fresh new twist.
The latest example of this is Covina Middle For The Performing Arts' spiffy revival of Neil Simon'due south Barefoot In The Park. StageSceneLA regulars may recall our rave review of Glendale Centre Theatre'south product of Barefoot just two months ago. Having seen and loved that in-the-round staging, one which gave me a new appreciation of just how timeless Simon's writing is (even when the play's events unfold inside the fourth dimension capsule of the 1960s), I found this very different looking merely equally well-acted proscenium staging an absolute joy. What better style is in that location to spend an evening than with an oldie-but-goodie given fresh new life past an absolutely terrific cast nether the direction of a comedy chief like Greg Zerkle?
From the moment I took my seat inside the Covina Center (one of the plushest and most state-of-the-art 99-seat theaters in L.A. canton), I knew I was in for a care for. Angelo Collado and Jerry Marble'due south set is a textbook perfect envisioning of the play's 1962 5th flooring New York Urban center walk-up flat, complete with broken skylight. Most exciting of all was the realization that Collado and Marble's set puts the top part of the five-flying climb in full audience view, thus allowing the audience see the parade of gasping-for-breath visitors, not just as they enter the apartment, only even before they ring the doorbell. This ingenious design doubles the laughs of each archway, and maybe even triples them when only the acme of the grey-haired delivery human's caput (a bewigged Nicholas Pariser) pops up to stage level, his trembling arms holding up the packages he'south brought with him, unable to ascend a stride further.
Barefoot In The Park, you may call back, is the then 36-year-sometime Simon's look at an "odd couple" of newlyweds, every flake equally mismatched as The Odd Couple'southward Oscar and Felix. Corie Bratton, described past Simon as "lovely, young, and full of promise for the future" is a joy-filled, adventurous immature bride married to an equally young merely absolutely unadventurous stuffed shirt of a lawyer hubby. (Simon describes Paul Bratton as a man who's "26 simply breathes and dresses like 56.") How tin can these 2 find happiness when dotard Paul won't fifty-fifty take off his shoes and run barefoot in Central Park, freezing winter temperatures exist damned?
Glendale's production featured a ascent young actor I described as "a young Jack Lemon" in the role of Paul. Covina'south introduces 6'iv" Marking Schroeder to L.A. audiences, and trust me, this is only the commencement fourth dimension you'll be reading about this young…Dick Van Dyke. (Clearly Paul Bratter has been in great comic hands these past few months.) The lanky blond Schroeder has Paul's adventurousness-challenged young lawyer down pat. (The guy is so anal-retentive that he stores his neckties between the pages of a dictionary to keep them perfectly pressed.) It's thus fifty-fifty more of a treat to meet Paul boozer, Schroeder's mastery of physical comedy prompting those Van Dyke comparisons, or attempting to fit his basketballer'due south frame onto an undersized sofa following a late-nighttime tiff with Corie.
Jessica Marie Smith brings pertness galore to Corie, and she is cute as a button. Still, I couldn't help wishing for a more than naturally acted, less mannered Corie. One scene which Smith does play to perfection is Corie's Act Two crying jag. It'southward rare that an histrion can cry honest-to-goodness tears and exist funny at the aforementioned time, and Smith does just that. It's a wonderfully-played scene.
As well offer its young leads a pair of dream roles, the play is a character actor's dream come truthful, Simon having written three of the best roles ever for 50something performers.
First up is Harry Pepper, telephone repairmen, masterfully brought to life by Sean Everett. Trudging up those concluding steps, turquoise Princess telephone in hand, declaring bravely "I'chiliad okay. But a picayune out of jiff" even equally he groans in pain, Everett nails every i of Simon's one-liners and gets applause at the end of both of his hilarious scenes.
Next among the "older" visitors is upstairs neighbor Victor Velasco, played by Broadway's Nick Santa Maria—now batting 3-for-three following his contempo star turns in A Funny Matter Happened On The Way To The Forum and The Producers. Victor, you may recollect, is the 58-yr-former European lothario whose joie de vivre makes him Corie's instant soul mate, eager to introduce her to the delights of "knichi" (salted eel which must be "popped" into the mouth and never nibbled) or the supposedly Albanian folk song "Shama Shama," which according to Victor means "Jimmy fissure corn and I don't care." Santa Maria not simply milks every laugh imaginable from Simon's jokes, he gets laughs just past saying "Paul" or "Mrs. Banks" in an indescribable (and indescribably comic) foreign accent.
Completing the over-fifty trio is Beth Robbins as Mrs. Ethel Banks, Corie'south mother, a office originated unforgettably on phase and screen by Mildred Natwick. Robbins is a prettier, younger looking Ethel than Miss Natwick, but no less funny equally she underplays to perfection, her dry delivery a perfect fit for lines like "I don't know dear. Information technology's smashing actually . . . What is it, nine flights?" and "I didn't think I'd brand it … If I'd known the people on the third flooring I'd have gone to visit them." Robbins and Santa Maria have such great stage chemical science together that it makes their "one night stand" absolutely believable.
Zerkle's direction is so imaginative and inventive that it makes me wish to see more of his piece of work every bit a director. (Zerkle spends much of his time acting nether the proper name of Gregory N, recently as Emile De Beque in South Pacific.) Many of the laughs in this product had me wondering, "Was that Simon's idea or Zerkle's?" and I think the answer was often the latter.
I of Zerkle's dandy inspirations is to turn the interval betwixt the original play'southward outset and second acts (combined here into a single) into a scene-modify "ballet," equally the actors methodically transform the Bratter'due south blank ochre-painted flat into a veritable banquet for the center, with defunction, chairs, wall-hangings, etc. in Technicolor dejection and reds. Meanwhile, a large chunk of the Covina Eye phase floor disappears, only to rising upwardly hydraulically begetting a bright red sofa to complete the psychedelically-hued room. The scene change gets arguably the longest, loudest applause of the evening, and there are many long, loud bursts of applause.
Patrick Copeland gets highest marks for his audio pattern, which features the very 60s sounds of the Swingle Singers, and a great echo effect whenever Corie shouts down the stairs to the visitor climbing from four flights below. Bryan Dauterive's lighting makes the set look even more gorgeous than it already does. Elizabeth Dreisbach's costumes are mostly spot-on, salve Corie'south very mid-to-late 60s mini-apparel and knee-high boots, not at all what a 1962 helpmate would take worn—a minor quibble however when compared to the overall excellence of the production.
Neil Simon of course went on to win the Tony for The Odd Couple, Biloxi Blues, and Lost In Yonkers (the latter also winning him the Pulitzer Prize), works which grew steadily deeper and richer in themes and characters. However, it's an absolute joy to become back to the beginning of Simon, back to the days of Barefoot In The Park. Some have defendant Simon of sitcom humor, simply if and so, his plays are the best sitcoms in town. Every one of his characters in Barefoot In The Park is 100% real. A production as fine equally this one makes it clear why Barefoot In The Park is no creaky relic, but a classic one tin revisit again and again. I'1000 pleased as punch to have had the chance to do just that.
Covina Center For The Performing Arts, 104 N. Citrus Ave., Covina.
world wide web.covinacenter.com
–Steven Stanley
March 6, 2009
Source: https://stagescenela.com/2009/03/barefoot-in-the-park-2/
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