Arts and Leisure
Theatre
A Party Cloudy "Sunshine Boys"
Theatre Virginia's latest production falls one boy short of a perfect
pair.
September 28, 1999
by D.L. Hintz
Richmond Style Weekly
Neil Simon's "The Sunshine Boys" is a classic comedy. Classic in the sense that it's
old. The play is set almost 30 years ago and tells a story about two men who were
old back then. So what can Theatre Virginia's production possibility offer a contemporary audience?
Surprisingly, quite a lot.The story is admirably simple: Al Lewis (John Fiedler) and
Willie Clark (Irwin Charone) are two feuding old actors. They are coerced by Clark's
well-meaning nephew, Ben (Warren Kelley) into reviving their famous vaudeville comedy
act for a television special. Add stick, stir and you've got a lighthearted division,
never too maudlin and often quite funny.
In fact, the only major lump in the batter is Fiedler, whose diminutive voice (easily
recognizable as Piglet's voice from the Winnie the Pooh cartoons) and static stage
presence drain much of the play. While a charming actor in the right role (e.g. his
stint as Mr. Peterson on the Bob Newhart show), he is ill-used here, and he never musters
adequate chutzpah to duke it out with Charone onstage.
As Willie, Charone capitalizes on his many opportunities to chew up the scenery. He
brings an almost simian physically to the role. His walk is a rangy shuffle with
long arms swinging, his face a mutable canvas with eyes often thrown wide open.
Contrasting nicely with Willie is the button-down Ben. Kelley infuses the character
with vigorous energy, bustling around the well-appointed set (top-notch
scenic design by James Hunter) and skillfully trading barbs with the old
man. More importantly, Kelley gives Ben dimension, making him the most fully defined character in the show. He's
not just Willie's straight man but also a compassionate relative. His love and admiration
for Willie are clearly visible.
The early scenes between Willie and Ben are the highlights, funny and fast-paced with
the actors sharing an engaging chemistry. But the action slows with Lewis' arrival
in the middle of the first act. Things don't pick up again until the "doctor's sketch"
in the second act, a delightfully politically incorrect bit of vaudeville. The sketch
is the cornerstone of the Lewis and Clark comedy act. In it, Willie plays a quack
doctor who shamelessly ogles his impressively endowed nurse (Jeane Jones). Jones
makes the most of her Small slice of stage time. She is affable and unflinching in the face
of Willie's unrepentant leers.
Later on, Willie faces off against a real nurse (Mimi Bensinger) hired to take care
of him. When Bensinger also hits all the right comic notes in her tete-a tetes with
Charone, it becomes clear that only Fiedler doesn't quite fit in with this crowd.
Given that Willie and AL are suppose to be a legendary comedy team, the lack of comic
zing between them could have meant a dark and stormy forecast for this production.
Luckily, director George Black provides an adequate number of other pleasures in
the show, so that its deficiencies are merely scatter clouds in an otherwise bright and
amiable "Sunshine Boys."
'Sunshine' carries a big shtick
THEATER REVIEW THE SUNSHINE BOYS
Monday, September 27, 1999
BY ROY PROCTOR
Richmond Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
"T he Sunshine Boys" details the love-hate
relationship between two former vaudevillians who, in their show-biz heyday, turned
their teamwork in a cornball sketch, "The Doctor Will See You Now," into box-office
gold.
That bit of extended shtick occupies the top half of Act 2, when Willie Clark (Irwin
Charone) and Al Lewis (John Fiedler) are reunited long enough to rehearse the sketch
for a TV special on the golden age of comedy.
The "Doctor Will See You Now" segment is funny all right in the on-target production
that just opened TheatreVirginia's 45th season, but the production's commanding strength
lies in director George Black's realization that the lives of Willie and Al are one extended shtick as well. Indeed, the shtick represented by their lives -- Willie
and Al admire each other tremendously as artists but detest each other as human
beings -- is far funnier than anything a sketch writer could have created for them.
Misguided "Sunshine Boys" directors try to differentiate between the accents Al
and Willie use on the stage and accents they might use when speaking in real life,
but Black and company will have none of that. Jewish vaudeville comedians themselves,
not just their comedy, were honed on the so-called Borscht Belt linking Jewish resorts
in the Catskills during the heyday of vaudeville. Their sketches may have been an
act, but, when they spoke, they weren't putting on an act.
Charone and Fiedler seem to the manner born. They bounce off each other with gusto
and toss off lines with relish. But they aren't alone. Warren Kelley, who began
acting at TheatreVirginia 20 years ago in "The Fantasticks," returns after a 15-year
absence and aquits himself admirably as Willie's nephew, whose level-headed
concern for his cantankerous uncle provides a reality check for the production.
Mimi Bensinger matches Willie one-liner for one-liner as the second-act nurse who
tends him after he suffers a heart attack. Bill Davis, Jeanne Jones and Ben Rauch
add greatly to the merriment in the "Doctor Will See You Now" segment in Act 2.
James W. Hunter's shabby-apartment setting for Willie is tellingly
detailed. Sue Griffin's costumes and Lynne M. Hartman's lighting are also first-rate. Central
Virginia hasn't been deprived of "The Sunshine Boys" recently. Creditable professional
productions played Charlottesville and Ashland last year. TheatreVirginia's is easily
the best.
1999, Richmond Newspapers Inc.