Plaza Suite Review

MPC Theatre Co. delivers highly entertaining 'Plaza Suite'
By NATHALIE PLOTKIN
Herald Correspondent
Article Last Updated: 05/15/2008 01:51:27 AM PDT


The MPC Theatre Company's brilliantly acted and directed side-splitting realization of Neil Simon's "Plaza Suite," which uses its setting to tie together three widely disparate yet highly comedic human relationships, makes for a delightful theatrical experience.
Love, marriage, honesty, maturity, sex — you name it — are all familiar themes present in a script which is highly entertaining.

Director De Bono had a sterling cast to work with. The sheer professionalism of his actors shone through at all times, no matter what situation they had to bring to life, and their wit and humor twinkled and brought out the available material to excellent effect.

Actually, "Plaza Suite" consists of three one-act plays which are complete entities, but which occupy the same space.

Room 719 as such, is only important in the opening act. Teresa Del Piero has reserved it in order to spend the night where she and her husband spent their honeymoon. However, 23 years later, the bloom of their marriage has disappeared.

Del Piero's role is written so that she apparently lives in a state of confusion as to dates, ages and numbers in general.

She has to overcome the perversities of the role the author has created in order to evoke sympathy for herself.

She is a very polished actress who inhabits a difficult and sometimes frustrating part and does it with charm and an underlying strength.

As the no-longer-loving husband, James Brady ably projects self-centered vanity and selfishness as he demonstrates his withdrawal from his marriage.

Room 719 means nothing to him since he has found another romantic interest and coldly acts accordingly.

In Act 2, Brady is cast as a successful Hollywood director in New York on business and who looks up his high school sweetheart of 17 years ago, hoping for a little afternoon dalliance. He neatly plays down and restrains his wolfishness, but his egotism comes through.

When Jennifer Muniz, married and the mother of three, arrives, she is apparently unsophisticated and shows an almost childish awareness of his stature and success. She reads all the fan magazines and knows every detail of his activities.

Brady is a smooth seducer and Muniz is an amusingly tipsy and willing victim. Together they go through all the motions leading to a final stage blackout in the bedroom.

But then comes Act 3, where the author goes all out in a splendidly human and unbridled, hilarious climax to the occupancy of room 719.

Even though the humor was prominent in the first two acts, here it is nonstop and borders on slapstick comedy.

The parents of a bride who has gotten cold feet just minutes before her very elaborate and expensive wedding and locked herself in the bathroom, are magnificently personified by Denise Guarnery and Gary Bolen.

They totally engage attention as they colorfully and humanly vent their frustrations and anger at the moment of truth.

Guarnery, as the mother who tries to be sweet and sensible while trying to convince the bride to come out, and Bolen, vacillating between the heavy father counting costs and then physically to reach the recalcitant bride, are marvels of pitch-perfect timing and their physical activity is totally hilarious.

Actually, this act alone would be worth the price of a ticket, but there is much to commend in the first two acts of what turns out to be a somewhat uneven vehicle.

Laugh-provoking one-liners are present throughout each act and point out with typical Simon humor the human elements of each story.

The supporting cast is as polished and professional as the major players.

Taylor Thorngate appears as a manhunting secretary and again as the reluctant bride. Brady Shilstone is an understanding bell hop and later is the masterful bridegroom. Jeromy Rutter is a sympathetic waiter. All do very well.

Nicole Bryant Stephens' design for Room 719 is handsome and the view of lit up skyscrapers is a clever and impressive detail.

Gloria Mattos Hughes' costumes are very appropriate, particularly in the third act. The bride is beautiful.

So, take a trip to the Plaza Hotel, Suite 719 and relax, laugh and enjoy the show. GO!

Proof Review

Unicorn opens theater season with attention-grabbing play
By NATHALIE PLOTKIN

Herald Correspondent

To open the 2007 drama season, the Unicorn Theatre really scored a winner with their production of "Proof," David Auburn's Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play in the Carl Cherry Center in Carmel.

Thought-provoking and audience attention-grabbing, this contemporary and lively script captures interest and holds it as it proceeds along a rather convoluted path in telling its emotionally meaty story.

There are several flashbacks and they are carefully listed in the program to help the audience keep track of events which would have a puzzling lack of continuity otherwise.

"Proof" tells the story of a young woman (Catherine) who has taken on the task of being the caregiver for her mentally ill father (Robert).

She has dropped out of college to do so and since her father was a mathematical genius, she is afraid that not only has she inherited his genius, but also his insanity.

The play opens with a dialogue between father and daughter on the eve of his funeral.

She sees him, as does the audience, and she speaks to him, but the question is raised about the reality of the scene and whether or not she is hallucinating. Yet there is a real bottle of warm champagne in the scene.

There is another, older, daughter (Claire) who walked away from the situation, but who took over the responsibility of the financial support of her father and sister.

She is a self-contained, emotionally detached person who is interested in doing right for her possibly dysfunctional sibling.

Then there is Hal, a former graduate student of the father who is attracted to the younger sister, but who wants to find some mathematical inspiration and career enrichment by going through the 130 notebooks the professor scribbled in during his illness.

Skip Kadish as the mentally ill father must create an almost chameleon-like emotional persona which he handles very skillfully.

In a heartrending scene when his illness reasserts itself after he has been in remission for a year, he is masterful.

Jennifer Muniz (Catherine) has the role of the willingly self-sacrificing daughter who must not only care tenderly for a difficult sick man, but must also face her fears about herself.

Stony faced, rigidly postured and coldly resistant to offers of help, she portrays the tortured inner depths of personality that make her riveting as she emphatically refuses to accept well-meant advice.

She captures sympathy as she struggles with her internal doubts and demons.

Lynette Graves is the older sister who wants to "do right" by Catherine. Her strong sense of duty is very well projected and she bears up under the coldly vituperative rejection she is the target of.

She shows how her patience is sorely tried, yet her underlying hidden warmth and caring strength are apparent.

When, in two major face-to-face, almost knock-down and drag-out confrontations, Muniz and Graves reveal the full force of the differences and resentments they have toward each other, there was crackling and powerful electricity coming from the stage.

Omar Hussain as Hal, the graduate student who cares for Catherine, also shows strength and purpose in facing up to the intractible reactions of Catherine.

He too, is warm and understanding and there is a well-projected maturity of character which adds humanity to the problems he is faced with. Still, his motivation is questionable as to its true reasons.

Director Carey Crockett guided his fine cast through an intelligently conceived and very well-integrated performance except for some seemingly overlong scene changes.

These were four special people bringing life to the author's ideas in realistic, yet emotionally colored performances, which at times included adult language.

Crockett's sense of theatrical proportion made this a fine beginning for the year and a memorable play that should not be missed.