I love Neil Simon and well aware that playing and directing Neil Simon is deceptively challenging. For instance if all you aim for is the “joke” the show will fail and fall into something completely hollow and if the characters are not committed, wholeheartedly, to their point of view with a purpose and a passion we miss the gravitas. If the director focuses on blocking and pace and there is little attention to the actual story we get a bit lost.
Mike Nichols says,”Directing a Neil Simon play requires treating his comedic dialogue with dramatic sincerity and high stakes. He famously advised actors performing Simon’s work “to approach the script with the intensity of a serious drama like King Lear. It is this absolute commitment to the characters’ struggles that naturally generates the humor.”
Simon’s characters rarely have the option to just walk away. The central conflict must be identified, ensure everyone is “in trouble,” and force the characters to fight for what they want until the very end.
Directing and acting 101-I return to this-never aim for the laugh. If the character’s stakes are high enough the audience will become invested and the humor will be even funnier.
If only they had followed Mr. Nichols’ advice.
Unfortunately this production left me wanting so much more. Granted, I saw the preview, and it was pleasing to many in the audience, but having experience in the theatre has taught me that what was missing in this production could not have fixed itself over night, though there is magic in what we do. Nobody begins a process intending to not do great work but often something goes awry.
Mr. Alder missed the mark on this one. I never believed what was at stake for these characters. Against the backdrop of McCarthyism and censorship, these characters use comedy as a source of survival to deal with the high pressure of their work in the television industry, wrestle with personal issues and fight for artistic independence. This reality felt absent and what I felt I was left with were actors throwing out one liners, laughing at the their own jokes and over the top choices that verged on farce and not right for this show. Something was lost in this process or simply not explored.
The standouts for me were Mr. Walton, Mr. Futterman and Mr. Sunderland. They all had good, subtle, fun moments and understood the style, the quick clear pace and point of view to make the dialogue snap. Mr. Bellis-Squires also did good work, strong accent, wanted a bigger voice. At times, I struggled to hear.
The set, though nice to look at, lacked the smoke stained, long lived in feeling of the era. I thought it was too vast, too high and almost generic. Possibly a somewhat more cramped environment might have added to the chaos.
This is a play that requires period accurate and appropriate costumes. More attention needed to be paid here. Two acts, lots of suits and women’s wear. Almost all of the suits were Ill fitting and the female clothes-perhaps right for the period, didn’t seem to fit the characters. Perhaps the costume budget was a bit too small. And, would somebody please tell most of the gentlemen that the coat hangs first so as not to crush the hat! Is nobody paying attention? How one handles their costume is a character building moment and so many of those moments were just lost.
This room should feel like home to these characters and I rarely got that feeling.
I also want to talk about the vocal disparities throughout the production. Vocally the ensemble was not in the same show. Some very strong voices and some weak. Seems like something the director could have helped with or maybe a vocal coach.
All that said , it’s about a 30 minute drive from Portland and the Niemeyer Center for the Arts and the Osterman Theatre is beautiful and the surrounding grounds are well worth arriving early to check them out.
Laughter on the 23rd Floor runs through July 19th. There are two more shows in their season: A Chorus Line opening August 1st and JAJA’s African Hair Braiding opening September 11th. go to clackamasrep.org or call 503-594-6047 Monday through Friday 10am-2pm for tickets.
6 Responses
I really appreciate your comments on this show Michael. I did this show at HART in 2022 as Kenny Franks. And loved the experience. Meghan Daaboul was directing. We strove to deliver real performances with real characters, and not go for the easy punch lines which is a pitfall of doing Neil Simon. Our set was indeed tight and small, and definitely ‘lived’ in. We didn’t have a large budget by any means. I was able to find real period clothes from the 1950’s from Ray’s Ragtime before they closed.
For this production, instead of picking the same acting troupe that appears regularly at Lakewood and Clackamas Rep regularly, try mixing things up with different type actors and delving further into the material for added depth, this would give a more fully realized production.
Thank you for sharing your experience. I’m so glad it was one you loved. Wasn’t Ray’s Ragtime something!
Definitely! I really miss it for finding vintage clothes for my theatre productions. And I look forward to reading more of your theatre reviews too. 😜👊🏻
I sometimes call what you’re talking about here as “asking for the cup of tea,” after that famous interaction between Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne when they were doing a play together. With one of their first audiences, Alfred got an enormous laugh when he asked for a cup of tea, but didn’t get it on several nights following no matter what he tried. He asked his wife what he was doing wrong, and she looked at him and said, “Alfred, stop asking for the laugh, just ask for the cup of tea.” And it worked. Play the truth of the moment for the character and the situation, and if you’ve got a good script -which this one is – the rest will largely look after itself. (LAUGHTER was the last play we did in ACT’s old space on Roy Street in Seattle – 30 years ago!! Ron Orbach, who’d played Ira in New York, headlined for us as Max and directed a dream cast that included Larry Ballard, David Pichette, Bob Wright, Michael Winters, the late and much-missed Bob Nadir, Andrew de Rycke, Joanne Klein, and Annette Toutonghi. I think we extended it twice, and by the end of the run we were well into August with a wonky a/c system and all the actors up there in their winter woolens and overcoats – we had trash cans full of ice backstage so they could cool down between scenes.)
Oh my god! That would have been a production to see! I loved that story in The Fabulous Lunts a Biography of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne by Jared Brown. Do you remember who directed?
Who directed Laughter? Ronnie directed as well as playing Max – I think he’s done that double-duty several times since around the country. Somewhere there’s great production shot, I’ll see if I can find it.