Review: Encore Entertainment's 'The Sunshine Boys'

Some years ago, comic Steve Martin released an album titled Comedy Isn't Pretty. That theme is one of many explored in Neil Simon's award wining play The Sunshine Boys. 

This laugh fest - one of Simon's very best - is being presented for a limited run at the Studio Theatre in the Toronto Centre for the Arts.

The story tells of a rocky reunion of a once famous comedy team  - Lewis  & Clark - who never got along and haven't spoken to each other in 11 years.

Jerrold Karch is the cantankerous Willie Clark. His memory is going and he is getting frail. Living in a one-room walk up, and cared for by his devoted nephew, Willie is angry at everything.  Most of all he is angry with his former partner, Al Lewis whose retirement brought their act to a finish. Karch grabs every bit of subtext in Simon's script and weaves together a finely detailed performance.

His long estranged partner, Al, is played by Irving Dobbs and he too creates a multi-faceted portrayal. Dobbs plays up Al's passive-aggressive side to perfection, and matches Karch with split second timing.  Watch as these two set the stage for their rehearsal. It is a bit of brilliantly timed business that Laurel and Hardy would be proud of.

Timing is crucial to comedy, and director Liz Best has seen to it that the whole show moves on very definite beats. The care that is displayed in the leading performances extends to the supporting roles as well, with Marion Hirschberg properly tart-tongued as a no nonsense nurse.  Jessica Krasnichuk portrays a nurse of a very different type in Al and Willie's sketch. This performance -a throwback to the days of burlesque - allows Karch to ogle her and engage in repartee laced with double and triple entendres.

As Willie's nephew, Ben, Aaron Sidenberg is the "straight" man here - Simon has purposely written the role so that Ben offers Willie a sounding board to reveal the details of the back-story. Ben's reasons for wanting the reunion to occur may be for his own financial gain, but underneath that is genuine concern for the well-being of his aging uncle.

While the laughs come fast and furious, it is only afterwards that you have a chance to consider the sadder undertones to Simon's incisive portrait. These comedians represent an era that has long passed, and Willy and Al don't have a lot of time left. In the final scene as they face life together in an actor's retirement home, there is a melancholy that pervades the stage.

Steve Martin was right. Comedy isn't pretty, but the hands of pros; it sure is a lot of fun.

 

Performances of The Sunshine Boys continue in the Studio Theatre at the Toronto Centre for the Arts until May 3. Evening performances are at 8 pm with the final Sunday matinee at 2 pm. Tickets  may be purchased in person at the Toronto Centre Box Office, online at www.encoreshows.com or by phone at (416) 872-1111.

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