BWW Reviews: Picardo and Wilkof Bring Down House As THE SUNSHINE BOYS At Totem Pole Playhouse

Back in the dear dead days of vaudeville, there were some fabulous comedy duos. One, the now-legendary Smith and Dale, performed together for over 70 years, and one of their most famous sketches, since the 1920's, was a small gem called "Dr. Kronkheit And His Only Living Patient." The idea of a long-running, formerly vaudeville double act with a doctor sketch sat well with a playwright named Neil Simon, already known for THE ODD COUPLE, among other plays. But so did the story of the even more legendary, yet far more short-lived, Gallagher and Shean (incidentally the uncle of the yet even more famous Marx Brothers, and the man who wrote their early routines), whose successful career as comedy sketch performers was accompanied by offstage personal animosity and not one but two break-ups. The result of combining the ideas of long-running comedy team, doctor sketch, and backstage contention resulting in near-homicide produced an equally comical show: THE SUNSHINE BOYS.

What opened on Broadway in 1972, with Sam Levene and Jack Albertson playing the famous, and famously antagonistic, team of Al Lewis and Willie Clark (AKA "The Sunshine Boys" double act), coppEd Simon a Tony nomination for best play, Albertson a nomination for best actor, and Alan Arkin a nomination for best director. It was revived in 1997, more briefly but equally famously because of its casting of Tony Randall and Jack Klugman, the television Neil Simon dream team, as Lewis and Clark. It's on stage now at Totem Pole Playhouse outside Fayetteville, directed by independent movie director John Putch (BACHELORMAN, ROUTE 30, VALERIE FLAKE), and the result is almost awe-inspiringly funny.

That it's jaw-dropping is the result not only of Putch's direction but of the distinct possibility that he's acquired the new dream casting for Lewis and Clark: Robert Picardo and Lee Wilkof. Aside from a prominent television career (STAR TREK: VOYAGER, THE WONDER YEARS, CHINA BEACH) and a series of films with director Joe Dante, Picardo starred in the original Broadway cast of GEMINI and the PBS-recorded Vienna performance of Leonard Bernstein's MASS - he's a very fine actor and singer, and while he's not particularly known for comedy, that could change easily after this, especially as Picardo indicates that he's not averse to continuing with future productions of the show. Wilkof is a Broadway legend, perhaps best known as the original Seymour in LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, and most recently on Broadway in the short-lived BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S. Wilkof is no stranger to comedy, especially musical comedy, and proves that from his initial entrance on stage.

Picardo's Willie Clark is the elderly grandfather/uncle/great-uncle that so many people, especially Jews of a certain age, remember with a fond "oy gevalt!" Both audience members and stage crew on opening night recalled having him as an older relative in their own families - his portrayal of the passive-aggressive elderly relative who denies needing any assistance but who can't live without it, the one who also still holds a grudge from decades before, is spot-on. Clark stays alive, and theoretically active, on his belief that he could still work, that a commercial or a walk-on role will need him at any moment. It doesn't help that his nephew/part-time caretaker, Ben Silverman (in a really fine comic turn by Totem Pole artistic director Ray Ficca, as a dry-as-dust straight man to Clark's gags), is a theatrical agent whom Clark expects to book him for a job any day now. Picardo makes Clark abundantly real to the audience, down to the ability to feel the pains he's presumably experiencing as he moves.

As Al Lewis, Lee Wilkof is a master of the small gesture - he can find humor for the audience in the act of sitting and peering into space. Cane maneuvers, peeking under cushions, sipping tea - no act is too small to be funny. Lewis is the one who decided to retire, earning Clark's unbridled and apparently permanent animosity; Picardo as the aggrieved Clark is the one with grand physical gestures and threats, while Wilkof's humor is in the details. Playing a man who retired from comedy to take up stockbroking, and who now enjoys a rock garden at his daughter's house in New Jersey, Wilkof's economy of movement is as suited to the character as the crankily greater gestures by Picardo are to his - which makes their fighting once Lewis enters Clark's apartment a delight to watch.

The reunion of Lewis and Clark after over a decade is for the purpose of staging their old classic "doctor sketch" on television, on a CBS show on the history of comedy. The sketch is partially staged at a CBS rehearsal during the second act - it's not so much a traditional vaudeville sketch as a ROWAN AND MARTIN'S LAUGH-IN routine, but it's funny nonetheless, the more so for the perpetual fighting breaking out between the participants.

MaConnia Chesser has a nice turn in the second act as the visiting nurse who suffers from Willie Clark's temperament during a medical recovery. In her own somewhat-less-than-quiet way, she's the perfect foil for him, all but a new partner in a comedy routine he didn't intend to have.

As usual, James Fouchard's scenic design is on-target, from the ceiling moldings in the apartment-hotel where Clark lives to the now-nostalgic CBS Studios set where Lewis and Clark are preparing to go on television.

While the pacing at the beginning of the first act seemed slightly slow on opening night, that should tighten up considerably after a few performances. Later in the first act, the tea-drinking scene with Lewis and Clark in Clark's apartment is worth the price of admission along with the staging of the Doctor Sketch at CBS in the second act. It's not "Dr. Kronkheit," but it's nonetheless hilarious, with Alicia Fusting playing a nurse entirely reminiscent of the naughty nurses of Rowan and Martin's television humor only a few years before Simon put this show on Broadway. Strongly recommended: even if you take a bottle of water inside with you after intermission, do not attempt to drink any of it during the Doctor Sketch unless you want to practice your own spit takes. There is (according to Willie Clark) quite enough spitting on stage already.

There have been comments by the cast and crew that Picardo and Wilkof are a solid decade younger than their characters. The better, one supposes, to keep them playing in these parts for that many more years.

At Totem Pole Playhouse through July 21, and strongly recommended even in these days of Neil Simon being out of fashion on Broadway. Call 717-352-2164 or visit www.totempoleplayhouse.org for tickets. It's followed by classic farce BOEING, BOEING, with Catherine Blaine, Katrina Yaukey, and veteran Totem Pole director Carl Schurr - this has been a promising season for Totem Pole so far, so consider ordering tickets for both shows.

Photo Credit: Totem Pole Playhouse

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