Plaza Suite
Richardson Theatre Centre
Reviewed by: David Ellivloc
To not bury the lead, let me first say that you should rush to buy tickets and see Plaza Suite at the Richardson Theatre Centre (RTC). This is an excellent production of a very funny comedy written by one of America’s premier playwrights. Go, go, go, and buy tickets now, as performances have been and are continuing to sell out. Or, if you prefer, kindly read on to learn why I make this recommendation, and then buy your tickets.
Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite is a play in three acts, each featuring a different couple in separate stories united only by the location in which they take place, Suite 719 of the world famous and lavish Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. Today, the Plaza Hotel still exists in NYC, although in 2008 it was converted into 181 condominiums with only 282 hotel rooms remaining, along with the grandeur of the building’s facade and its prime location at the Southeast corner of Central Park on 5th Avenue. In 1968, when Plaza Suite debuted on Broadway, the Plaza Hotel was in its full glory with over 800 rooms and was the place one dreamed of staying in Manhattan, where one would love to host an opulent wedding, rekindle an old romance, or perhaps even entertain a fresh romantic rendezvous.
The original 1968 Broadway production, as well as the 2022 revival starring Mathew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker that just closed in July, had the same actors playing the three different couples featured in the play, one of which appears in each of the three acts. While Neil Simon thought this worked well on stage, he did not think it worked as well in the 1971 movie version, in which actor Walter Matthau played the lead male role in each of the three stories while a different actress played opposite him in each. Neil Simon thought Matthau was only suited to play the lead actor in the third act. In the very well-cast RTC production, each act features two different actors as the lead couple, which works excellently and makes a fun-filled and thought-provoking production.
The first act, ”Visitor from Mamaroneck,” is the most serio-comic of the three comedic acts, as it features a long-married couple, Sam and Karen Nash, as the guests in Suite 719, which Karen has expressly reserved to rekindle romance. As the play opens, Karen, played by Lise Alexander, is shown into the suite by a Bellman/Waiter, played by Wade Byington. Karen’s loneliness and desperate hopefulness are made palpable by Ms. Alexander, who imbues Karen with the nervous energy of a five-year-old desperately trying to keep a balloon aloft. Mr. Byington’s Bellman is a sympathetic ear for Karen, but we also see his growing frustration as he tries to move on to the next guest. David Kelton, as Sam Nash, comes into the suite bringing no actual bags but a lot of obvious emotional baggage and promptly pops Karen’s hopeful balloon. Alexander and Kelton both make us see and feel the tiredness, disappointment, and anger that Sam and Karen have accumulated during a long marriage, whose exact length is a point of protracted contention between the couple. Both actors had me anxiously wanting to see whether Karen would be able to rekindle their romance or if Sam genuinely wanted something else. And could Sam’s something else be a new romance with his much younger right-hand woman at his firm, Jean McCormack? Jean is played with a quiet efficiency and aloofness by Katie McCune that, along with the ambivalence of Kelton’s Sam, keeps us like Alexander’s Karen guessing until the end of this act.
And if you’ve been guessing about Suite 719, as designed by Kyle Chinn, I found it both sleek and expansive, taking up the entire stage with a plush living room and separate bedroom, bedecked with richly upholstered furniture, gilded mirrors and oil paintings, as well as two prominent windows, which the characters in each act made me believe looked out onto the city and Central Park. Director Rachael Lindley, who also designed costumes, has her cast using the space to significant effect, including one incredibly special effect in Act Three, which I will leave a surprise. Act One characters are appropriately attired in simple modern business/dressy attire, although we’re also given a glimpse of Karen's sexy negligée. Light and Sound Design is well done throughout the play as is stage management.
The second act, Visitor from Hollywood, introduces Jesse Kiplinger who, as played by Martin Mussey, is a brash, lascivious producer from Hollywood. Kiplinger’s many movies, while all money-makers, are without an Academy Award or sometimes even critical favor. Yet his cinematic canon, along with his tabloid fodder Hollywood lifestyle, might have sufficient cache to help him score with an old flame from the past, his high school sweetheart, Muriel Tate. Muriel, played by Lorna Woodford, is now a married New Jersey homemaker with three children, who bursts into the suite and promptly announces she shouldn’t be there, shouldn’t stay, and must leave. “Will she, or won’t she?” is the question, and Mussey and Woodford lead each other and the audience on quite a chase. Mussey brings a surprising pathos to Kiplinger who, as played by Mussey, might not be just a man on the make but might also be a man in search of salvation through a new relationship with a good woman. Likewise, Woodford’s Muriel is a woman who might just be contemplating a dalliance or who might be desperate enough to kick over the traces of married life and start anew with her old high school boyfriend. The dignity and desperation with which Mussey and Woodford play Kiplinger and Muriel made me think that a lifetime love, rather than a dangerous liaison, might be what each character genuinely sought. Kudos to actors and director both for raising the stakes that way, making the characters more sympathetic and their story more compelling. Woodford’s Muriel is a high energy, fast-talking, ball of confusion bouncing around Mussey’s seductive Kiplinger and Suite 719. Both actors can not only put the topspin on the multiple jokes that Neil Simon’s script offers, often from single set-ups, but they are also both very gifted physical comedians. Director/Costumer Lindley has Kiplinger attired in a black mock turtleneck, brown sport coat, tan slacks, and what Kiplinger describes as handmade English shoes, which like Mussey’s portrayal helps elevate the character from sleezy to suave. Woodford’s costume and hairdo put me in mind of the put-together 60’s movie look of a Barbra Streisand character, complete with headband, beads, handbag, shoes, and even gloves, all in bright white, which complemented the barely knee-length blue lace frock. Wade Byington, the only actor in the cast to appear in all three acts, again plays the hotel waiter, and is appropriately garbed in the requisite grand hotel uniform of such as he is in Act One.
In the third act, ”Visitor from Forest Hills,” the guests occupying Suite 719 are Mimsey, a bride-to-be, whose imminent nuptials are scheduled to begin any minute downstairs in the Plaza’s Green Room, and her parents, Norma and Roy Hubley. The action revolves around getting the would-be bride to the altar and includes some very physical comedy, especially from Brian Hoffman’s delightfully frazzled tuxedo-clad Roy. Deborah Key’s Norma, costumed by Lindley from top to bottom in the most sparkly of mother-of-the-bride ensembles, would shine without the rhinestones. Like the actors in the first two acts, both Hoffman and Key made me believe their characters had a long relationship and were able to maintain their characters’ dignity, despite all the verbal sparring and physical hijinks this act serves up. Hoffman and Key’s commitment to Norma and Roy’s absolute need to get Mimsey to the ‘church’ on time kept the comedy and the characters grounded in the reality of a Plaza Green Room filled with 68 guests, all awaiting the now-late nuptials that are to be followed by a lavish spread including some hopefully still warm cocktail frankfurters. In this act, Wade Byington appears as the tuxedoed groom, Borden Eisler, and he does an excellent job giving Borden an edgy solidity with only brief stage time and dialogue, making him hugely different from the Bellhop/Waiter characters he plays in the other acts. Katie McCune also returns in this act as Mimsey, who through action and costuming appears the quintessential blushing young bride.
I would also like to call out McCune and Byington for conducting the entertaining scene changes, especially between Acts Two and Three, that the audience applauded, and which Director Lindley has them doing in character dressed as Plaza staff. While the play is three acts, there is only a single intermission and that is placed between Acts One and Two.
The RTC is a wonderful venue with a great space for the actors to play upon, while the audience enjoys a huge comfortable lobby perfect for visiting both before a show and during intermission, as well as comfortable and close to the stage seating during a show. Truly, there is not a bad seat in the house.
Finally, many people are needed to make great theater but, as she was on stage in Plaza Suite, I would like to point out that Lise Alexander is not only an accomplished actor but is RTC’s Executive Director. Likewise, Rachael Lindley’s association with RTC is not just as this play’s director but as RTC’s Artistic Director. Plaza Suite at RTC runs through July 24th and plays Thursdays at 7:30 pm, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm, with Sunday Matinees at 2 pm. Most appropriate for ages 14 and up. Accessible seating is available.
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