Theater Review—

An Unusual Simon Work With Perfect Timing At Ridgefield Theater Barn

By Julie Stern

RIDGEFIELD — Neil Simon’s  1971 work The Prisoner of Second Avenue is a play that doesn’t get produced much anymore. In fact, in the twenty years that I’ve been reviewing Connecticut theater, it’s never been offered at any of the venues I cover. Now, however, with the prolonged recession sending shock waves across the country, a play about the disintegration of a middle-aged man who finds himself suddenly unemployed is all too timely. Ridgefield Theater Barn is presenting the timely tightrope walk between comedy and drama on weekends through October 23.

With Simon being who he is, the drama of 47-year-old Mel Edison — who suffers a nervous breakdown when he is abruptly dismissed from his job as an advertising account executive — is grafted onto a Barefoot in the Park style comedy, milking laughs from the tribulations of life in Manhattan. Running gags about two Lufthansa stewardesses in the adjoining apartment, the stranger on a higher floor who pours buckets of water on Mel when he goes out on his balcony to rant, and the daytime burglars who steal everything in the Edison home including the Scotch and the Valium, sit awkwardly with the reality of Mel’s anguish. It’s a little too much like Death of a Salesman done as sitcom.

The acting is impressive. Gary Millar as Mel, and Jody Bayer as his wife Edna, are alone on stage for the entire long first act and they handle their roles perfectly. Frightened by Mel’s bizarre behavior, and uncertain of how to help, Edna persists in being as loyal and supportive as possible. They’ve been married 25 years, and she isn’t ready to give up on him.  This couple doesn’t bicker or snipe at one another. Mel’s sarcasm is directed at himself, or at the strangers who populate his world.

Along with the cacophony of noises that are a constant of urban life, the play captures the anarchy and anomie of a dysfunctional city. Voiceover radio news keeps tallying the latest reports of strikes crippling the day to day operations of public services:  sanitation men, hospital workers, even judges in the criminal courts have all walked out.

Trapped in the apartment because he feels too uncomfortable to face people who still have jobs, Mel alternates between creeping around the edges of the room, and going out on the balcony to vent his rage and frustration. Meanwhile, Edna, who has gone back to work as a secretary to pay the bills, keeps trying to comfort him.

The second act brings in Mel’s four siblings, who hold a family council to figure out how to help. Again the acting — with Stephen DiRocco as his successful older brother, and Betty McCready, Joan S. Wyner and Melissa Power as his three sisters — is very good.  Yet this is played in a primarily comic vein. There is something cartoonish about the family: the dizzy sister, the whiny one and the vague one, all commanded by the Tony Soprano-like patriarch, seem disconnected from the Manhattan Edisons.

In the end, what I liked best about the play was its portrait of a marriage, in which the husband and wife truly care about each other, with a resilience which will enable them to weather this particular storm. The theater was packed, and the audience seemed very pleased with what they were watching.

It’s probably just my personal grump, that it was a little too much like doing Death of a Salesman as a sitcom.

(As mentioned earlier, performances continue weekends until October 2.

See the Enjoy Calendar or call 203-431-9850 for curtain and ticket details.)