A cheater, seducer and bride at the Plaza
From 1961, with Come Blow Your Horn, to 1993, with The Goodbye Girl, Neil Simon was Broadway’s king of comedy.
In the 32 years between that first major success and his last hit show, Simon wrote 24 other plays with varying degrees of success. Most were turned into films.
In those same three decades, theatre companies across North America quickly scheduled the latest Simon comedy in their seasons, but for the past 20 years, the popularity of his work has waned.
Simply Theatre has chosen to revive Simon’s 1968 comedy Plaza Suite, which tells three different stories set in suite 719 of New York’s famous Plaza Hotel.
In Visitor from Mamaronek, a woman books the room at the Plaza to celebrate her wedding anniversary as it’s where she and her husband spent their honeymoon. However, she comes to discover he is having an affair with his secretary.
In Visitor from Hollywood, a successful director books the
suite hoping to seduce his high school sweetheart, and in Visitor from Forest Hills, a young bride has locked herself in the washroom and her parents must try to convince her to come down to the reception.
There was actually a fourth chapter cut during rehearsals that Simon later turned into the film The Out of Towners.
Simon wrote Plaza Suite so that a pair of actors could appear in all three stories, but Simply Theatre’s production will feature three entirely different casts under three different directors.
The only overlapping is that Colleen Bishop, who directs Visitor from Hollywood, also stars as the distraught wife in Visitor from Mamaronek.
“This is the first time I’ve ever directed a Simon play or acted in one, although I have seen the film versions of many of his plays. What you learn very quickly, regardless if you are directing or acting, is that there are so many layers to Simon’s characters. It’s as challenging as it is fun,” says Bishop.
She also discovered that “Simon’s characters in Plaza Suite are doing the exact opposite of what they are saying, and that he crams so much backstory into such a short running time.
“As an actor and a director, you have to discuss what these people’s real intentions are and what it is they actually want out of these rather tense situations they find themselves in.”
Best of all, Bishop says actors and directors of a Simon play don’t have to force the comedy. “It’s already there in the situations, dialogue and characters he’s written.”
When she agreed to play the woman who discovers her marriage is a sham, Bishop thought it would be difficult to find laughs in such a sad situation.
“It’s certainly not as hilarious as a bride locking herself in the bathroom, but there are laughs and far more than I saw when I first read the script. I didn’t think it would be as funny as it’s turning out to be.
“It’s the tension in this situation that creates the laughs, and the genius in Simon’s writing is he makes us feel deeply for all of his characters.
The play is set in 1968 and has to remain there, devoid of social media and cellphones. These stories wouldn’t work if set in current times.
Charlotte Loeppky is directing Visitor from Mamaronek with Fred Krysko appearing as Bishop’s callous philandering husband.
For Visitor from Hollywood, Bishop is directing Adam Jamieson and Kathryn Kozody in a catand-mouse seduction dance, and Tanya Elliott Wolff is staging the slapstick nonsense caused by the reluctant bride in Visitor from Forest Hills.