Review: BAREFOOT IN THE PARK at Arizona Theatre Company

Arizona Theatre Company:

New Season: 56th. New Artistic Director: Matt August. New venue: Tempe Center for the Arts. Old chestnut: Neil Simon's 1960s' comedy BAREFOOT IN THE PARK.

An odd choice to launch so much that’s new? Well, if the venerable ATC can’t roast the chestnut into a delectable theatrical treat, who can?

Sure, the play can boast of some impressive credits: Simon’s longest-running hit (four years and 1530 performances); four 1964 Tony Award nominations, including a win for Best Direction of a Play (Mike Nichols); adaptation into the popular film, directed by Gene Saks and featuring Robert Redford and Jane Fonda. 

However, if you’re not willing to surrender your modern-day sensitivities about gender roles or nestle into the way “funny” was funny back then, then BAREFOOT is going to wear blisters on your temperament. It’s that feeling you get when you tune in to an old favorite that had you belly-laughing years ago only to discover that it falls flat today. The times have changed. Attitudes have changed. We’ve changed.

And that’s the problem with ATC’s production. For three acts (2 hours and a quarter), the aim is to reconnect with Simon’s sophisticated and clever turns of plot and words that nevertheless, notwithstanding the cast’s determined efforts, feel tired and dated.

The play about newlyweds, Corie (Kyra Kennedy) and Paul Bratter (Tyler Lansing Weaks) requires that audiences travel back to a time when couples divided their domains between office (for the guys) and home (for the gals), rotary dial phones were used to make calls, and a five-story walkup (“6, if you count the stoop”) on Manhattan’s East Side cost $125 a month.

Upon returning from their honeymoon, Corie hustles to inject excitement and spontaneity into their marriage and make a home…despite its size (the bedroom has enough space for a single bed), a leaky skylight and a broken heater. Her rosy outlook is in marked contrast to her far more reserved and practical spouse (a “fuddy duddy”). Corie epitomizes spontaneity; Paul, predictability. From the top, they realize how differently they see things. He sees lemons; she conjures up lemonade.  

Things come to a head when the marriage hits a roadblock after a crazy night out at an Albanian restaurant on Staten Island and Corie demands a divorce on the grounds of irreconcilable differences. It takes some give and take and compromise (the lesson of the play) for the couple to reconcile. And they lived happily ever after…maybe.

Once you set aside the above commentary, what’s left is the plaudits to the cast. On that score, the strength of this production, directed by Michael Berresse, rests on the shoulders of Kyra Kennedy. She is a firecracker, whether sprinting across the stage to arrange the room accordingly for an evening of romance or furiously splitting hairs with her intractable and starchy hubby.

Weaks plays stodgy pretty well, albeit the performance feels more forced than natural.

Simon factored in a subplot to add some comic spice to the play. The Bratters have a neighbor in a most unlikely place ~ an attic that is accessible in a pinch through their postage stamp-sized bedroom. The over-the-top performance of Harry Bouvy as Victor Velasco, the aging and eccentric Lothario whose speculative eyes are drawn to any skirt that comes his way, adds much-needed zest to the comedy. Thanks to Corie’s machinations, he lands with Corie’s mother, Mrs. Ethel Banks (Gayton Scott, whose performance as Paul’s overbearing, judgmental, and meddling mother-in-law comes across as strained and too much more of a caricature).

Simon's comedic timing and witty, character-driven dialogue are ever-present in the play. There’s lots of stage business and bits of shtick that rely on old gender stereotypes and are calculated to draw laughs…and Berresse ensures that the cast takes full advantage of them: Corie flipping backside off the living room couch. Mrs. Banks reeling after a laborious climb up five flights (remember, 6, if you count the stoop). The telephone repairman (portrayed to maximum comic effect by Mathew Zimmerer) who has seen enough of stairs and marital discord to last the rest of his career.

When it comes to the set, what is described in Simon’s script as a tiny flat becomes a more spacious setting, handsomely rendered by Tim Mackabee. It makes for a stage that gives Ms. Kennedy plenty of room to draw the audience into her world and roast that chestnut just right.

BAREFOOT IN THE PARK runs through November 5th at its new home, Tempe Center for the Arts in Tempe, AZ.

Arizona Theatre Company ~ https://atc.org/ ~ 1-833-833-282-7328 ~ Venue: Tempe Center for the Arts, 700 W. Rio Salado Parkway, Tempe, AZ

Photo credit to Tim Fuller

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