– The Mike Padley Award for Best Supporting Actress – Victoria Thomson for Jean McCormack & Muriel Tate
Neil Simon [who recently died at 91] had three comedies and a musical running on Broadway in 1967 – the year I first set foot on the sidewalks of the vibrant brash noisy home city that formed the backdrop to his work. I still recall the excitement at being engulfed by its energetic, optimistic, assertive citizenry, always hurrying, hailing yellow cabs, yelling orders and greetings across crowded delis.
Plaza Suite opened the following year, 1968. Set in Suite 719 of the iconic luxury hotel at the foot of Central Park, it shows Simon’s range of comedy skills in what are effectively three one-act plays, as three different couples lay bare the stresses and pitfalls of marriage. The long-wedded Nashes are barely clinging onto their union; two former high school sweethearts seek solace from their failures; and the farcically warring Hubleys finally grasp why Mimsey their much-loved only child has locked herself in the bathroom on her wedding day.
I hope you like the set our brilliant design and workshop teams have fashioned and get happily lost in these three theatrical mini-worlds. Actors aged from seventeen up reveal Mr Simon’s central truth that pain is the root of comedy, playing unhappy people delivering witty one-liners – the trademark approach of arguably America’s finest twentieth century playwright.
And I hope, whatever age you are, you wallow in the nostalgia for a golden time in NYC popular culture, theatrically, musically, and in other ways. Play sort the references! I was married in New Jersey just across the Hudson, and as you can probably tell, I still love New York.
We present our final anniversary season offering for your pleasure. Enjoy.
Publicity #1
Publication: Shoreham Herald
Publication Data: September 20 2018 issue – Guide Section – p39
Text Header: Anniversaries coincide as Wick Theatre Company celebrate the comic genius of the late Neil Simon
Text:
Wick Theatre Company are inviting you to join them at New York’s iconic luxury Plaza Suite Hotel in its late-60s heyday.
In suite 719, we meet three pairs of Manhattan visitors all battling the ups and downs of marriage in various ways.
We first meet Karen who after decades of marriage, is still besotted with Sam, but is he having an affair? Then call in on Jesse, Hollywood producer, meeting up with his old high-school sweetheart. And finally, we join Norma and Roy as they desperately try to get their daughter out of the hotel bathroom and up the aisle.
Graham Till is delighted to be directing Plaza Suite on its 50th anniversary in Wick’s 70th season, especially as it brings a number of new faces to the stage at The Barn Theatre.
“This is the last item in our 70th-anniversary season and we wanted to do something that reflected some of the life and times of the company, and we have also got the anniversary of the play as well. And I think we are the first company to perform this play anywhere in the world since Neil Simon’s death last month.
It is a lovely nostalgic comedy that will remind many people – many of our audiences are of mature years – of their youth in the 60s and 70s, and not just the theatre, but also the music, of that other Simon, Paul Simon & Garfunkel. There are just little hints here and there, nostalgia elements to it all.
It is set in the year it was written, in 1968. You could try to update it, but I don’t think it would really work. We have had to try to create an image of plush top-quality hotel suite on the stage, which has been fiendishly difficult. You have to thank the unsung workshop team. They have done an amazing job coming up with ways of realising it, to make it look like a rich hotel suite.”
Graham is hoping, since Simon’s death, there will be a better appreciation of his work.
“We have done Alan Ayckbourn before and talked about how underatted he is by the gurus of the theatre critics. He is never allowed to be up there in the pantheon of the great writers, and the same thing has happened with Neil Simon in America.
Plaza Suite is really three in one, three one-act plays. The first is quite deep, a tragicomedy, bitter-sweet. One of the great things about Neil Simon is that he sees more clearly than most that comedy is rooted in pain. He was very keen on watching Charlie Chaplin, that physical comedy rooted in pain, but so too is verbal comedy … and the other two acts move on from there. The second is basically romantic situational comedy, and the third is more or less outright farce. You can see the broad span of his comedy in this one piece.
And I am really pleased with my cast. I have got a brilliant cast.”
Performances of Plaza Suite run from Wednesday, September 26 to Saturday, September 29 at the Barn Theatre, Southwick Street, Southwick. The curtain up is at 7.45pm. Tickets cost £11 on 01273 597094 or www.wicktheatre.co.uk.
The production is also entered into the annual Brighton & Hove Arts Council Drama Awards.
Publicity #2:
Publication: Shoreham Herald
Publication Data: September 27 2018 issue – Guide Section – p49
Text Header: Celebrating a US stage great
Text:
Wick Theatre Company are inviting you to join them at New York’s iconic luxury Plaza Suite Hotel in its late-60s heyday.
In suite 719, we meet three pairs of Manhattan visitors all battling the ups and downs of marriage in various ways.
We first meet Karen who after decades of marriage, is still besotted with Sam, but is he having an affair? Then call in on Jesse, Hollywood producer, meeting up with his old high-school sweetheart. And finally, we join Norma and Roy as they desperately try to get their daughter out of the hotel bathroom and up the aisle.
Graham Till is delighted to be directing Plaza Suite on its 50th anniversary in Wick’s 70th season, especially as it brings a number of new faces to the stage at The Barn Theatre.
“This is the last item in our 70th-anniversary season and we wanted to do something that reflected some of the life and times of the company, and we have also got the anniversary of the play as well. And I think we are the first company to perform this play anywhere in the world since Neil Simon’s death last month.
It is a lovely nostalgic comedy that will remind many people – many of our audiences are of mature years – of their youth in the 60s and 70s, and not just the theatre, but also the music, of that other Simon, Paul Simon & Garfunkel. There are just little hints here and there, nostalgia elements to it all.
It is set in the year it was written, in 1968. You could try to update it, but I don’t think it would really work. We have had to try to create an image of plush top-quality hotel suite on the stage, which has been fiendishly difficult. You have to thank the unsung workshop team. They have done an amazing job coming up with ways of realising it, to make it look like a rich hotel suite.”
Graham is hoping, since Simon’s death, there will be a better appreciation of his work.
“We have done Alan Ayckbourn before and talked about how underrated he is by the gurus of the theatre critics. He is never allowed to be up there in the pantheon of the great writers, and the same thing has happened with Neil Simon in America.
Plaza Suite is really three in one, three one-act plays. The first is quite deep, a tragicomedy, bitter-sweet. One of the great things about Neil Simon is that he sees more clearly than most that comedy is rooted in pain. He was very keen on watching Charlie Chaplin, that physical comedy rooted in pain, but so too is verbal comedy … and the other two acts move on from there. The second is basically romantic situational comedy, and the third is more or less outright farce. You can see the broad span of his comedy in this one piece.
And I am really pleased with my cast. I have got a brilliant cast.”
Performances of Plaza Suite run from Wednesday, September 26 to Saturday, September 29 at the Barn Theatre, Southwick Street, Southwick. The curtain up is at 7.45pm. Tickets cost £11 on 01273 597094 or www.wicktheatre.co.uk.
The production is also entered into the annual Brighton & Hove Arts Council Drama Awards.
Review #1:
Publication: Shoreham Herald
Publication Data: October 4 2018 issue – page 27
Reviewer: Elaine Hammond
Text Header: Wick actors bring out best in dated comedy for awards
Text: Content
Wick Theatre Company’s entry for the Brighton and Hove Arts Council Drama Awards 2018 was a timely tribute to Neil Simon.
The American playwright died on August 26 at the age of 91, so the performances at The Barn Theatre in Southwick from last Wednesday to Saturday were probably the first time his comedy Plaza Suite had been seen on stage since his passing.
Set in a luxury hotel in New York in 1968, it is a bit dated, to be fair, there are some great lines in there and the Wick cast really got the best out of it.
There are three acts, each a different story set in the same suite, and the second, Visitor From Hollywood, featured John Garland as Jesse Kiplinger and Victoria Thomson as Muriel Tate. It was, potentially a bit sleazy, with the movie producer inviting his old flame over for ‘drinks’, but adjudicator Jane Collins praised the pair for the way they handled it.
Victoria, who also played Jane McCormack in act one, was by far the stand out performer of the night, especially in her role as Jesse, where her characterisation was over the top but to the point of being just right. Jane said Victoria was ‘spot on’ and added the rest of the cast could have been a bit ‘bigger’, more bold and brash, as an American would be.
The first story, Visitor From Mamaroneck, was the longest and really quite poignant. Mike Wells played Sam Nash and Barbara Isaacs was his wife Karen Nash, a couple married for 34 years, though they could not agree the correct date for their anniversary. As it turned out, Sam did not care much, either, as he had been having an affair with his secretary and Barbara played her part very well in response the news [sic]. It was a very touching exploration of a long-standing relationship but had some laugh-out-loud moments in between the sadness.
The final act, Visitor for Forest Hills, featured Roger Frederick as Roy Hubley and Pam Luxton as Norma Hubley, the parents of a bride-to-be who refuses to leave the bathroom. Their antics as they made every effort to get her out of there were hilarious, each feeding off each other yo get the best laughs.
Overall, Jane said the cast had been engaging, making for a very enjoyable evening. She was rightly impressed by the set, which cleverly divided the suite into two separate rooms, and said the actors used the space well.
Review #2:
Publication: Brighton Argus
Publication Data: October 2 2018 issue – page 36
Reviewer: Barry Jerram
Text Header: Plaza Suite *****
Text: Content
PLAYWRIGHT Neil Simon, who sadly died in August, wrote many hit plays, among them The Odd Couple and Barefoot in the Park. He was the master of Jewish humour and wisecracks.
The Wick Theatre Group director Graham Till certainly did Simon proud with this production.
The play is in three acts, each involving different couples but all set in Suite 719 of New York City’s Plaza Hotel and all have the theme of marital difficulties.
In the first the audience is introduced to Sam and Karen Nash. Karen, in an attempt to revitalise their marriage, has booked them into their honeymoon suite. Her plan backfires as the two bicker with shattering consequences. Their jibes are mixed with much humour and delivered in fine style by Barbara Isaacs and Mike Wells.
The second involves a reunion between movie producer Jesse and his old flame, suburban housewife Muriel. His repeated seduction attempts are thwarted by her constant requests for Hollywood gossip. John Garland achieved the almost impossible in giving the predator a sympathetic edge while Victoria Thomson delivers a hilarious performance as the vacillating Muriel. Her comic timing is superb as are her body movements that do the opposite to what she is saying.
The last act is filled with increasingly outrageous slapstick moments. Parents Roy and Norman franticly attempt to coax their daughter out of the suite’s locked bathroom to attend her wedding downstairs. Pam Luxton gives a stylish, comic performance as the mother who can ignore the no-show wedding crisis to panic over her laddered stocking. As her bulldozing husband, Roger Frederick squeezed plenty of comedy from the character’s obsession with the cost of the wedding. Sporting a toupee, glasses and rushing round the stage there were times when he brought to mind Private Jones from Dad’s Army.
Review #3:
Publication: NODA
Publication Data: October 2018
Reviewer: Lance Milton
Text Header: The great entertainment I have come to expect by the Wick Theatre Company.
Text: Content
The plush suite 719 of the Plaza Hotel, New York, New York was brought to life with the usual superb attention to detail David Comber and the team at Southwick are renowned for immediately setting the scene for an equally splendidly appointed cast to play against.
Barbara Isaacs illuminated the stage as a delightfully brash American society housewife, Karen Nash, delivering a performance that was simultaneously nuanced while never underplayed. Mike Wells, played her cheating husband, Sam Nash, with an equally warm yet believably broad character, with the pair utterly immersing the audience between them. The first act was ably supported by Victoria Thomson as the mistress, Jean McCormack who appears for frustratingly few lines given the eloquence with which it was delivered. Ian Mackenzie and Tom Gould played the smaller hotel staff roles in all three acts perfectly, neither over played nor understated.
In the second act, John Garland, a seasoned boon for the company delivered a thoughtful and very subtly gaudy, yet never overtly flamboyant film producer, Jesse Kiplinger, deftly leading us to believe that he despised his LA lifestyle almost as much as he longed for his passionate instant with childhood sweetheart Muriel Tate. Victoria Thomson returned to play Muriel with a superb subtlety of comedic timing and delivery that had me chuckling frequently at its marvellous rendering.
Finally in act three the comedy and farce notched up another gear with Roger Frederick and Pam Luxton providing virtuosic hilarity so effortlessly delivered that there was little if any suspension of belief required. Tom Gould also returned for a cameo as the bridegroom of few words, Borden Eisler, swiftly encouraging the bride-to-be Mimsey Hubley, played by Claire Brown, to unlock herself from the bathroom where she was previously holed up for the entire scene.
As always a very warm welcome, great company and the great entertainment I have come to expect but try not to take for granted by The Wick Theatre Company. Writer Neil Simon would doubtless have approved of this brilliant staging!
