"The Sunshine Boys" is a not-new play about a couple of not-new performers It's now running at the New Jewish Theatre. Neil Simon wrote it in 1972 about a couple of aging vaudevillians. Partners in a long-popular act, they broke up when one, Al Lewis, unilaterally decided to retire, leaving the other, Willie Clark, up a metaphorical creek without a partner. They hadn't been getting along for a good while before that, and Lewis' exit has left Clark struggling for work.
This is Neil Simon, remember. So there are plenty of first-rate one-liners that leave even the most jaded critic laughing out loud. (Simon has too many plays for almost anyone to remember all the funny lines, so some old things are indeed new again.) We meet Willie in a residential hotel where he's lived for years, hanging around in pajamas and arguing with the front desk. His only visitor is his nephew, Ben, who also has the unenviable job of being Willie's agent. Willie's memory isn't what it used to be, which makes auditioning for, say, a potato chip commercial a real challenge.
The day the play opens, Ben has brought more than low-sodium soup, this week's Variety, and a few cigars when he comes on his weekly visit to Willie. He's heard from CBS, who wants to do a big special on American comedy. Willie almost begins to preen. But then Ben explains the offer: Big bucks, yes, but conditional on the old team being reunited to do their signature sketch about a doctor. Al loudly, repeatedly, refuses. Chaos, yea, unto mayhem ensues, naturally, especially when Al actually appears.
One can't help but pay particular attention to the casting, since illness in the cast forced New Jewish and director Doug Finlayson to bring in a different Willie. John Contini stepped in, and it certainly looks like a seamless fit. Morose, bitter, agitated and gloriously unkempt, one can hardly say he glows. But he glares. Peter Mayer plays Al, nattily dressed and living peacefully with his daughter and her family in New Jersey. Mayer, an actor who's become known for another "g" verb – he's superb at glowering – turns out to have a real gift for comedy, great timing, and a real way with the crisp lines from Simon. It's an excellent pairing. Also fun to watch is the nephew, Jared Sanz-Agero, whose patience is slightly greater than his exasperation, but not much. A particular shout out to Fanny Belle-Lebby, who plays the RN – not the "nurse" in the spike-heeled pumps – for Al. She says the things to him that everyone I ever worked with has wanted to say at one time or another, and delivers it as though she'd been working with patients for years.
An amusing set from scenic designers and artists Margery and Peter Spack, especially the set for the television sketch. (Why is there a butcher's chart of a hog? And pay particular attention to the eye chart.)
More fun than political debates.
The Sunshine Boys
through November 1
The New Jewish Theatre
Wool Studio Theater
2 Millstone Campus Drive