By Carol Davis
VISTA –Some vintage wines get better with age. Some say women get better looking as they age. Some say that of men. Some Broadway plays have lasting power and in retrospect, shed more light on a current situation than when it was written. Some fall off by the wayside and when they are revived just don’t muster up to today’s standards.
For the most part, many of Neil Simon’s vintage plays are stuck in the time zone in which he writes them. They’re simply dated. He’s a funny man. He writes or wrote funny situational plays, romantic comedies, autobiographical comedies and some musical comedies. Some, like the current production at the Avo, still have a few laughs left in them but the cast has to work hard for them.
Barefoot in the Park opened in 1963 and was one of his longest running hits, 1530 performances, making it, then, the tenth longest-running and non musical play in Broadway history. It closed in 1967. Some might remember the movie starring Jane Fonda and Robert Redford.
For starters, the newlywed couple in Simon’s play, Corie and Paul Bratter (Jessica John and Jason Maddy) couldn’t be more polar opposites if they tried. Recently back from their honeymoon they don’t seem to have much of a clue about each other’s likes and dislikes.
Paul is a budding attorney and always wears a frown. He is the more held back and cautious of the two with an entirely different outlook on life than Corey. He buries himself in his law stuff and she busies herself just being happy and fixing up her apartment. One sees the glass half full, the other half empty
Corie finds them a five-story walkup flat in New York, I’m guessing near the Park because she likes to ‘walk barefoot in the park’ even when there’s snow on the ground—an activity Paul find rather distasteful and almost unthinkable.
This tiny to- floor flat barely puts out heat from a radiator that you have to stand on a ladder to adjust. It (ooops!) has no bathtub (a key gripe of Paul’s), but it does have a leaky roof and the bedroom is big enough for barely a single bed, so that when the couple turns, they do it in unison.
The neighbors it appears are this side of weird. Victor Velasco (Eric Poppick), who lives in the attic apartment above them and is a Hungarian gourmet and rascal all rolled into one, fits the bill as one of them. Corie finds him charming.
It’s only natural, given Corie’s lively disposition that she would make friends with and immediately want to match up her mother, Ethel (Dagmar Krause Fields), who lives alone and has her own idiosyncrasies to deal with, with him. Velasco, suave, pleasant, rather elegantly dressed (Roslyn Lehman and Renetta Lloyd), makes a very good impression and is eager to share with them some foods they never would have thought of eating in the past.
They all agree to go to dinner together but drink way too much. That in turn, causes Ethel to become tipsy and sick and MIA since Paul and Corie had not heard from her since they left the restaurant. When she finally does show up in back of their apartment a bit later (one of the funnier moments in the play giving Ms. Fields an opportunity to show off her funny side) she’s wearing Velasco’s bed slippers and robe. Director Jason Heil got some good leverage out of this mishap.
The laugh line running through the show however appears to be the climb up the five (six including a landing) flights of stairs to get to this love nest. We first see it with the arrival of the telephone man who comes to install their phone ((Peter Pavone is a great character actor) and then shortly after when a delivery man (Howard Bickel another hoot) schleps up to the apartment bearing wedding gifts for the couple.
Then of course every time Paul comes huffing and puffing disheveled with briefcase askew, we know he’s just made the climb as we see with Ethel when she comes to visit. We see it again when the phone man and delivery guy come back for a second time. Needless to say the laughs come, but it does get old after a while.
Over all, the ensemble looks good, has a feel good quality about it and Jessica John and Jason Maddy are a handsome couple. John’s Corie is bubbly, happy go lucky and stunning even in her 60’s clothes. Maddy’s Paul is tall and good looking with a good future but none of it rings true. Unfortunately, there is no chemistry between the two. And all the fuss about her wanting to make him happy and his wanting to be agreeable falls on deaf ears.
Poppick does the best he can with his off-the-wall character and he does it well and Dagmar Krause Fields has the comedic timing to pull off her character and make her more credible and funny than any of the others in this dated Simon play.
Barefoot in the Park is the first show of Moonlight’s 21st winter season.
Coming up next is Irving Berlin’s I Love A Piano.
See you at the theatre!
Dates: Through Feb. 6th
Organization: Moonlight Stage Productions
Phone: 760-724-2110
Production Type: Romantic Comedy
Where: 303 Main Street, Vista, CA 92084
Ticket Prices: $22.00-$30.00
Web: moonlightstage.com
Venue: Avo Theatre