There are fewer laughs than might be expected. But there’s more human interest in Dominion Stage’s production of Neil Simon’s "Laughter on the 23rd Floor," which opened last weekend at the Gunston Arts Center for a three weekend run.
Simon is well known for plays that combine lots of funny lines with solid plots and clearly crafted characters, turning out big hits like "The Odd Couple," "Plaza Suite," "The Sunshine Boys" and his trio of semi-autobiographical plays starting with "Brighton Beach Memoirs."
With those productions behind him, he turned again to semi-autobiography, mining the memories of time he spent as a writer in the early days of television for such shows as Sid Caesar’s "Your Show of Shows." When it opened on Broadway in 1993, "Laughter on the 23rd Floor" got lots of laughs but mixed reviews.
Dominion’s production of Simon’s play marks J. Glenn Sartori’s directorial debut with the company, but he brings to it a good deal of experience directing Simon’s works, having directed two at Springfield Community Theatre.
Sartori’s approach to this one is to concentrate on the stories of the characters involved, rather than try to make each punch line get a laugh. It is appropriate, given the difficulty of delivering comedy and the fact that community theater actors have rarely been able to refine the skills of stage comedy to the level that Simon’s gags require.
The story centers on the team of writers working backstage at a pioneering television program, facing twin threats of network budget cuts and McCarthyism, cramping the growth of the new medium, television.
Two central roles are crucial to the play’s success, and Sartori has cast a very capable actor in each. They take very different approaches to very different roles.
Matthew Hartman provides an appealing personality and a smooth, almost off-hand delivery as Lucas Brickman, a young man joining the writing team for a fictional television show. As the narrator, as well as a participant in the onstage events, Lucas is the only character to address the audience directly. Hartman is appealing and has a pleasant delivery of the flippant but lightweight comic lines Simon wrote for a character that is clearly his view of his youthful self.
Matthew Griffiths has the flamboyant part of Max Prince, star of the television show for which Lucas writes. No light and pleasant approach to that part would work. It requires overplaying, because the character is a ham — an insecure one at that. Few actors could combine the outsized ego, the underlying insecurity and the warm heart that the part requires.
Nathan Lane originated the role on Broadway, a part that Simon constructed especially for him. Griffiths does a credible job with the role, but lacks any of the outrageously flamboyant energy that would bring to mind early television comedians like Caesar, Jackie Gleason or Phil Silvers, each of whom employed Simon in their heydays.
Three supporting characters form the backbone of the ensemble that supports Hartman and Griffiths. Ron Bianchi, as Milt Fields, and Kim Scott-Miller, as Kenny Franks, bring solid acting and good comedic delivery to the roles of writers who move the plot line along.
But Louis Levy as head writer Val Skolsky is difficult to understand at times, not only because of an appropriate but problematic accent but also because he is occasionally placed on a couch downstage, shouting away from the audience.
For a play that is really about a tight group crowded into a single room facing external threats, Dominion Stage has an awfully large set, stretching across the wide stage of Gunston’s Theatre One. The set design is credited to "The Reluctant Designers" who state in the program that "the set design is pretty much what’s in the script" but it could have been concentrated to better effect. Using the full width of that stage exacerbates the director’s difficulties, robbing the actors of proximity that would make banter funnier and lessening the sense of pressure on the group.
Carl Eisen’s sound design is an amusing conglomeration of early television jingles that make staying in the auditorium during intermission a lot of fun.