The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Bromance between ‘The Exes’
Former Conn. journalist’s play heads OffBroadway
When a friend told writer Lenore Skomal that he and his best friend met because they were both exhusbands of the same woman, she was floored.
“I thought ‘Huh, is this a common occurrence?’ ” says Skomal, a Connecticut native who grew up in Stamford and Fairfield and now lives in New York City. “They didn’t really know each other while the second husband was married to the wife. They became friends after the divorce.”
This kooky bromance planted a seed in Skomal, a former journalist and author of 17 books. Eventually, it became an
inspiration for “The Exes,” Skomal’s play, which starts previews Wednesday OffBroadway at Theatre Row, 410 West 42nd St., between 9th and 10th avenues.
The play centers on selfmade billionaire Richard Killingworth during the weekend of his daughter’s wedding. His best friend is Dick, the first husband of Richard’s estranged wife, Mavis. When Mavis drops in, unannounced, dragging along a new fiance, things get a little madcap.
This is a Skomal’s second play — her first was an adaptation of her book “Bluff,” about a coma victim. For her second run at the stage, Skomal wanted something a bit lighter and more commercial. Today’s theater landscape, she says, consists largely of “political plays, lots of dark stuff and revivals.” She says her intent was to provide a little counterprogramming.
“I look at this sort of like the love child of Noel Coward and Neil Simon,” Skomal says, adding that the play combines the dry, drawingroom wit of the former and the highenergy situational comedy of the latter.
For good measure, Skomal says, she threw in a bunch of fun elements, including a butler who haughtily refers to himself as a “house manager,” and the fact that one of her main characters, Richard, is fabulously wealthy. And, to keep things moving, she confined the action to the wedding weekend.
“I made myself a very tight time frame to work in,” Skomal explains.
This theatrical venture is her latest step in a writing career that has spanned more than 30 years, and has included, among other things, a stint as a journalist and columnist with the Connecticut Post.
She has also has a long career as an author, and her books include both fiction and nonfiction. One of her books, the biography “The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter,” was recently optioned by producer/ director Nico Raineau and is being made into a movie, though Skomal says she’s not directly involved in that project.
Of all the forms in which she’s worked, Skomal says, playwriting and journalism have the most in common.
“What I loved about journalism is that it’s dialogue driven,” she says. “You can’t write a story without great quotes. When you’re writing a novel, or even nonfiction books, it’s a lot of scene setting.”
Playwriting, Skomal says, is a return to that dialoguedriven style of writing. It also allows her, like journalism, to look for the deeper meaning in what people are saying. When she interviewed people as a journalist, Skomal says, she knew people weren’t always telling her the whole truth.
“It’s our job as journalists to understand the motivation behind what people are saying,” she says.
Characters in a play also can be cagey or outright dishonest, Skomal says, and she enjoys layering in subtext and motivation to explain why the people she writes say what they say.
Of all the forms of writing Skomal has worked in to date, she says, playwriting has “become my favorite medium — but that’s probably because I’m doing it now.”
She also enjoys watching the way the cast and production interprets her play. That team includes, among many others Skomal’s sister Magda S. Nyiri, who directed the play. Nyiri lives in Fairfield.
Skomal says one of the thrills of playwriting is watching people take what she’s put on the page and bring it life.
“You get see how they’ve taken your product, and made this whole other version of it,” she says.
“The Exes” will be in previews from Wednesday to Oct. 5. Shows take place Tuesdays through Sunday, with Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday performances at 7 p.m., and Friday and Saturday performances at 8 p.m. Matinees are 2 p.m. Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays.