Rumors by Neil Simon, City Theatre, September 29 - October 23

The greater Austin area hasn't lacked for productions of this 1988 farce by Neil Simon. A search of AustinLiveTheatre brings back announcements of stagings by the Wimberley Players in September, 2009, by the Renaissance Guild in San Antonio in July, 2010, by Leander's Way Off Broadway Community Players in January of this year and even by UT's student-run Broccoli Project last March. That sequence resembles the systematic trial-and-error of artillery ranging, back and forth, close and far, until once all the coordinates are set, BAM! the shot goes home. Home, in this case, being the City Theatre, one of Austin's liveliest and most entertaining theatre venues.

Simon was one of the twentieth century's most prolific writers for stage, big screen and small screen. The Internet Movie Data Base lists 83 titles associated with him and its short title for his entry tabs him as the writer of The Odd Couple (1968). Rumors is nowhere in that list, probably because its premise, timing and humor are pure stagecraft. The audience witnesses the arrival of various couples in evening dress, one after another, all invited to celebrate the tenth anniversary of their friend and associate, Charlie Brock, Deputy Mayor of New York, and his wife Myra. Problem: the kitchen staff is missing, the food hasn't been prepared, Myra has disappeared, and their friend Charlie is in a daze, having fired a pistol shot that took off his own earlobe.

They're trapped in a situation that surpasses their understanding. Equally baffled by these circumstances and equally confined in this box set, we watch each couple squirm, panic, bicker and try to cover up as others arrive. Simon paces the arrivals and discoveries, and all we learn of Charlie is third hand -- he's confused, he's crying, he's taking Valium, he's sleeping, he's unavailable to answer when the police come calling to inquire about a car accident, a car theft, and the reports of two shots in the night.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Images by Bret Brookshire: Too Many Husbands by W. Somerset Maugham, Different Stages at the Vortex Repertory, June 24 - July 16

Images by Bret Brookshire for

presentation of

W. Somerset Maugham’s

Too Many Husbands

June 24 – July 16
The Vortex, 2307 Manor Rd (click for map)
Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 7 p.m.
“Pick your Price: $15, $20, $25, $30
Call 478-5282

Different Stages closes its 2010–2011 season with W. Somerset Maugham’s comedy Too Many Husbands. A fast, frivolous, comedy the plot focuses on Victoria, a delectably pretty but ruthlessly self-centered young woman whose husband; William was reported killed three years earlier in World War I. But William is not dead; he is on his way to London for a reunion with his wife, unaware that she is now married to his best friend, Freddie.

The situation is complicated further by the discovery that the avaricious Victoria already has a third husband in view, a rich entrepreneur, for who she plans to dump both Freddie and William, feeling she has made sacrifice enough for the war effort. Through their ingenuity the two friends finally win their freedom and Victoria her wealthy third husband.

Directed by Norman Blumensaadt (The Night of the Iguana), Too Many Husbands features Martina Ohlhauser (Hay Fever) as Victoria, Joe Hartman (MilkMilkLeomnade) as Freddie and Brian Villalobos (The Crucible) as William. Tony Salinas (The Night of the Iguana) plays the rich entrepreneur. Paula Gilbert (An Inspector Calls) plays the cook and Phoebe Greene plays the parlor maid and Ashley McNerney plays the nanny. Phil Cole (The Skin of Our Teeth) and Julie Winston-Thomas (Spider’s Web) play the divorce lawyer and his assistant.

Click to view additional images by Bret Brookshire at AustinLiveTheatre.com

Two Rooms, Rapscallions of the Periphery at City Theatre's Summer Acts! festival, July 8 - 17

Maybe I'm the wrong person to review this play.

I did accept the Rapscallions' invitation to see it, and I rearranged my schedule before departing Austin so as to get there for the opening. I empathized immediately with the leads Scot Friedman and Val Frazee as they explored for us the intimate pain for a married couple of his arbitrary abduction in mid-80s Beirut.

That core story is powerful because of its simplicity: abrupt separation, lives torn apart, a forced interiorization of loss and the hallucinatory escape into memories and wishes.

Blessing's framework for that tearing story shows tawdry incomprehension of the realities of the time. He seeks to complement the interior story with an exterior story, a sort of j'accuse, portraying with contempt the imagined actions and attitudes both of the U.S. government and of the U.S. press. He presents us a bloodless State Department official who has been assigned the task of keeping the wife Lainie quiet and compliant, and he presents us with a bloodhound reporter convinced that he can bust this story wide open by befriending and betraying Lainie.

As the action went forward and the auxiliary characters pressed Lainie and lied to her, I felt a growing distaste, almost a nausea, and my systems began to shut down. Because I had been there.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .