Theater Review " Plaza Suite"

THEATER REVIEW

“Plaza Suite”

Produced by: The John W. Engeman Theater - Northport

Reviewed by: Jeb Ladouceur

You needn’t be Macaulay Culkin to find yourself luxuriating in a sumptuous Plaza Suite in New York—but his was a somewhat better fate than the one befalling playwright Neil Simon’s fictionally troubled characters in this Tony-winning comedy of the same name. Unlike the film Home Alone—Part Two, memorable for only brief scenes featuring inventive Kevin in the storied Plaza, this stage play takes place there exclusively. And after all was said and done in 1968, Mike Nichols had taken home a Best Director Tony, while Neil Simon and Maureen Stapleton had been nominated for Best Play and Best Actress respectively.

We all know what a hit the oft-reproduced series about the lost kid was … but probably only septuagenarians will recall that Plaza Suite on stage featured George C. Scott … later Dan Dailey … and later still, Peggy Cass. The comedy ran for 1100 performances! New Yorkers loved it, and judging from Saturday’s receptive audience at Northport’s John W. Engeman Theater, suburbanites love it still.

Movies about the famed Plaza aside, it’s necessary that the set for this trio of essentially one-act plays appear just as impressive as everyone knows the actual landmark venue to be. It’s a big order, but last year’s Encore Award winning set designer, Jon Collins (selected for Twelve Angry Men – also produced at Engeman) is more than equal to the task. The set’s gorgeous!

As for the story line: Three sets of characters wind up sequentially in Plaza’s Suite 719. The first pair might come to wish they hadn’t planned the re-enactment of their honeymoon there … the second duo, friendly but unmarried (to each other) is similarly steered off-track by events … and things really seem destined for ‘hell in a hand basket’ when the third couple’s daughter turns ‘runaway bride’ in their bathroom.

If Noel Coward fans have read his ‘Suite in Three Keys,” they’ll find something familiar about this show, and will probably agree with the famed literary wit who said, “…different plays…all in a hotel suite…good idea…wonder where Simon got it…”

But the source of Neil Simon’s inspiration notwithstanding, it was up to Plaza Suite’s veteran Director Patricia Zaback to interpret the script for her versatile cast and get the best out of them. Zaback does so, and subsequently this traditionally slow-starting play builds steadily and logically—as expected. By Act III hilarity has set in and it’s off to the races on a riotous romp down the home stretch.

Joan Barber is outstanding as a Joan Rivers-like Karen and Norma, and she’s capably complemented by Michael Scott who doubles as Sam and Roy. But the biggest surprises of the evening are the wonderful Gina Milo and Todd Lawson in Act II. Timing’s everything in a comic show like this where actors must play off one another’s cues with relentless precision, so if I had only one star to give, it would probably have to go to Director Zaback. With that sure Helmsman, nimble Cast, and impressive Set, all in place—don’t be surprised if California Chrome isn’t the only Triple Crown winner this season.

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Award-winning Smithtown writer Jeb Ladouceur is the author of eight novels, and his theater reviews appear in several major L.I. publications. In Ladouceur’s next thriller, “Harvest” due in late summer, an American doctor is forced to perform illegal surgeries for a gang of vital organ traffickers in The Balkans.