COMPROMISING CHARACTERS 

Barefoot in the Park, Steeple Players

05 May 2009

In BAREFOOT IN THE PARK, Neil Simon presents a few characters who have outlooks on life that are poles apart.  He mingles characters that are free-thinking and generous or conventional and unadventurous, and then forces them to act out their differences. It is in these actions the audience finds the laughs as these completely different people interact with one another.

The story centers on Paul and Corie Bratter, two young newlyweds who have just moved into their first New York apartment.  It is a small studio with a leaky skylight, faulty heating, and much to Paul's chagrin, no bathtub.  Director Victoria Lamberth creates a wonderful 1960's atmosphere for this show with her light brown walls, cool periiod tunes, a perfectly hippie set, and corresponding costumes.  Lambreth blocks the show by using the entire playing area, and includes activity over the busted skylight  on the roof of the apartment. Lambreth, along with Jill Dunlap, must be a hard-working set design team and their multitude of props are handled by a very capable stage crew.

For the most part, the actors do a good job of delivering the laughs.  The leading players in this show are played by real life married couple, Bryan and Aubree Gentry.  Bryan takes on the part of Paul, a sedate, conventional young lawyer who doesn’t handle his wife with a button-down restraint, rather with little patience.  Alongside him, Aubree's Corie is the innocent, spunky, and high-maintenance hippie-girl. She is clearly having fun with this character.  However, as Corie, this actress has the correct, bubbly energy, but she repeatedly sounds as if she’s yelling to be heard over others, therefore a steady one-note performance ensues. Hopefully, she can mix in more vocal and emotional colour as the production continues.  The crazy upstairs neighbour, Victor Velasco is preciously played by Joe Brennan, who is opposite in temperament, yet attractive in personality to Paul and his mother-in-law.  Other comic notables are Michael Pickering at the brash, Jersey-accented Telephone Repair Man and Clayton Cabron as The Delivery Man.

The biggest scene stealer in this show is Ginny Cavin as Corie's mother, Ethel Banks. She is side-splittingly funny whether she is climbing up six (five?  nine?) flights of stairs, delivering rapid-fire one liners, or popping pink pills so she won't puke the exotic gourmet food. Cavin's comic timing is that of a seasoned actor who knows how to take Simon's lines either as they are scripted or with clever interpretation and keep it at the author's intended comedic level.  It was clear that my audience’s spirits lifted quickly whenever she came back on stage with quip-packed dialogue that is Mr. Simon's signature.

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