Neil Simon comedy kicks off Darien Players' season

The Darien Players' season-opening production, Neil Simon's "Laughter on the 23rd Floor," operates on two different levels. First and foremost, it's a comedy rife with the one-liners, put-downs and shtick that one would expect from America's leading comedic playwright. Second, to people of a certain age, it's a trip down memory lane to the infancy of television, when a set was considered a luxury and everyone in the household crowded around on specific evenings to watch their favorite shows.

Included among those old-time favorites is Sid Caesar. The king of television variety, Caesar dominated the airwaves for years in several incarnations, aided and abetted by his writing staff whose ranks reads like a veritable hall of fame of comedy -- Mel Brooks, Larry Gelbart, Carl Reiner and Woody Allen, among others who also included Neil Simon and his brother, Danny. In crafting this valentine to those halcyon days, Simon produced what has been hailed as the masterpiece of his later career.

The play is set on a "typical" day in the writer's room of "The Max Prince Show," a thinly disguised send-up of Sid Caesar. The year is 1953 and outside of the office things are happening. Sen. Joseph McCarthy is at the height of his powers. The Russians are developing the hydrogen bomb. But inside the office, only two things matter -- how funny will this week's show be and how long will NBC allow them to continue without "dumbing down" for Middle America.

Director Dan Friedman is a long-time admirer of Simon and Caesar, but that's not all that attracted him to this play.

"It just works on so many different levels," he explains. "Besides the automatic comedy that the situation presents by itself, there are also the more serious underlying themes of McCarthyism and substance abuse that get turned on their respective ears because the characters don't know how else to react to them except to crack jokes."

Players President Ron Heinbaugh harkens back to last season's production of "The Dinner Party," also written by Neil Simon and directed by Friedman.

" `The Dinner Party' was a very, very different type of play," he said. "It was much more dramatic and the comedy in it was very much balanced by it. If you think about it, as is the case with [`Laughter'], it's extremely difficult to portray people who are expected to be funny because the bar is set so high."

To portray this self-described bunch of "lunatics," Friedman has assembled a cast that is more than up to the challenge. Paul Lenhart plays the role of Lucas, Simon's alter ego and the narrator of the play. Jeff Pliskin plays Milt, the brash, over-the-top womanizer and extrovert while Fred Tisch plays Val, the put-upon head writer who still carries his Russian accent years after coming to America.

Also appearing are Geoffrey Gilbert as the "token gentile" Brian; Brad Shwidock as the erudite California-bred prodigy Kenny; Melissa Schleier as Carol, the sole woman writer; and Deborah Burke, who plays Helen, the overworked secretary.

Rounding out the cast are Peter Green as Ira, a massive hypochondriac and egomaniac and Vic Terenzio as Max Prince, the Caesar-like figure who prefers to spend his time in the writer's room than in confrontation with the executives of the network that employs him.

All are veterans of the Darien Arts Center's stage with the exception of Lenhart and Schleier who are making their Players debuts. Pliskin, Burke and Gilbert appeared together in "The Dinner Party." Shwidock turned in a memorable performance as Sgt. Toomey in another Simon show, "Biloxi Blues." Tisch appeared in several one-act plays by Agatha Christie, Green played the upper-class art dealer in "Six Degrees of Separation" while Terenzio's most recent appearance was in "The Elephant Man."

"When you think about the talent that was in that writer's room," Friedman said, "it's somewhat intimidating. But at the same time, it's been a joy watching the old clips and reading up on some of the anecdotes. The main thing is that we're having fun and I think that will come across very strongly to the audience and they'll have fun too."

"In these times," Heinbaugh concludes, "Everybody could use a laugh. This play delivers them a hundred-fold."

"Laughter on the 23rd Floor" opens at the Darien Arts Center's Weatherstone Studio on Oct. 30 and runs through Nov. 14, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. Tickets are available by calling the box office at 655-5414 or visiting http://arts.darien.org.

This play makes excessive use of mature language, so parents of children under age 13 are cautioned.