Review: Laughter on the 23rd Floor (Eclectic Full Contact Theatre)

  
  
Laughter on the 23rd Floor

Written by Neil Simon 
Directed by David Belew
at Athenaeum Theatre, 2936 N. Southport (map)
thru June 29  |  tickets: $22-$27   |  more info
  
Check for half-price tickets 
  
  
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The golden age of TV comedy lives

Eclectic Full Contact Theatre presents

Laughter on the 23rd Floor

Review by John Olson

Arriving at the Athenaeum Theatre’s Studio Three, something struck me for the first time in some ten years of reviewing Chicago theater – how rare it is for Chicago non-Equity companies to produce an out- and-out comedy. Comedy-dramas, sure – or even the dark humor of a Martin McDonagh play, but a pure gagfest? Even the musicals staged by the city’s storefront troupes tend toward the heavier side (recent productions of Spamalot and Avenue Q are exceptions). Is it that the companies see comedy as less worthy? More likely, they just recognize it’s harder to pull off. To revive an old quote attributed to several dying actors, “Dying is easy, comedy is hard.”

So let’s give props to Eclectic Full Contact Theatre for boldly going where most of their colleagues fear to tread – to the Neil Simon gagfest, Laughter on the 23rd Floor. Simon had to fight the perception of his gift for comedy being less significant than that of more “serious” dramatists. He finally shook off that rap with his autobiographical trilogy of Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues, and Broadway Bound as well as his Pulitzer Prize winning Lost in Yonkers – all plays with a great deal of heart and pain mixed in with laughs that were well earned in their keen observations of human folly. Two years later, he returned to the “gagfest” genre with Laughter on the 23rd Floor, a fictionalized poke at his colleagues on the writing team of Sid Caesar’s live TV show, “Your Show of Shows”, that ran from 1950-54. It’s affectionate, to be sure, but Simon paints the comedy writers of the fictional “Max Prince” TV show as mostly a bunch of talented misfits that we mostly laugh at rather than with. There are laughs, but not as many and not as resonant as there are in even Yonkers or Brighton Beach, let alone The Odd Couple.

Director David Belew and a talented cast deliver the laughs in high style. Michael Woods is a terrific Caesar surrogate, playing Max Prince with physical skill – his lean body and bug-eyed expressions evoke Caesar’s ghost, and paint a picture of a deeply neurotic man that nonetheless knows a good bit when he sees it and knows how to get it out of his writers. The head writer, Val, a Russian émigré, is played with dry comic charm by Andrew Pond. Tough with his team, he knows exactly when to capitulate to the whims of the star he supports. Ira, the hypochondriac writer with an erratic work ethic (reportedly based on Mel Brooks), is done with manic energy by Charlie Wein (and what a surprise it is to see what he can do with a role like this after his turns as troubled gay teens in Beautiful Thing and Southern Baptist Sissies). A little less quirky are Kirk Osgood as Milt, the writer with an oddly struggling fashion sense and Alex Levin as Kenny – the ambitious Hollywood-bound writer with screenplays in his head. The only female writer on the team, Carol (Lisa Savegnago) works hard to be one of the boys and the even-keeled Kenny (Scott Edward Mills) does what he can to keep the ship on keel. Lucas (Parker Guidry), the surrogate for Simon as the youngest member of the team, is the narrator and mostly just an observer. Jessica Lauren Fisher has some nice moments as Helen, the loyal secretary to the team.

Belew keeps the pace frantic and gets his actors to commit to the roles fully, but Simon’s script fails to fully bring us into these characters. Simon introduces a few plot lines – in the first act, there’s the threat of NBC cutting the show from 90 minutes to 60, and in the second act, the announcement that one member of the team will be fired for budgetary reasons. Neither crisis is fully developed or amounts to much so the script is mostly a series of moments resembling sketches more than forming a plot. The result is frequently funny, but not engaging despite the best efforts of the Eclectic team.

Cathy Tantillo’s costumes and Pat Iven’s set (a bit reminiscent of the office set of “The Dick Van Dyke Show”, also inspired by Caesar’s “Show of Shows” TV series) evoke the period nicely. Simon was part of a legendary comedy writing team that included many of the greatest comic minds of the 20th Century – Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Larry Gelbart and more. It’s great that he shared the experience with us in this play, but more involving evocations of it can be found in the film and musical My Favorite Year and the original “Dick Van Dyke Show”.

Rating: ★★½

Laughter on the 23rd Floor continues through June 29th at Athenaeum Theatre, 2936 N. Southport (map), with performances Thursdays-Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays 2pm.  Tickets are $22-$27, and are available by phone (773-935-6875) or online through OvationTix.com (check for half-price tickets at Goldstar.com). More information at Eclectic-Theatre.com.  (Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes, includes an intermission)

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artists

cast

Parker Guidry (Lucas), Kirk Osgood (Milt), Andrew Pond (Val), Alex Levin (Brian), Scott Edward Mills (Kenny), Lisa Savegnago (Carol), Michael Woods (Max Prince), Jessica Lauren Fisher (Helen), Charlie Wein (Ira)

behind the scenes

David Belew (director), Alyssa Jaksa (stage manager), Raychel Parker-Dull (stage manager), Justin Atkinson (production manager), Pat Iven (set & sound design), Jeff Irlbeck (lighting design), Cathy Tantillo (costume design), Mara Sullivan (props design), Jessica Lauren Fisher (casting director), Neil Tobin (copywriter), Bob Boord (art director), Tom Wyler (filmmaker), Seismic Agency (advertising)

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