NEW YORK — It turns out to have been a stroke of retro genius, plunging Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick into Neil Simon’s 1960s relationship scrimmage, “Plaza Suite.” The merry old time this seasoned pair of married comic actors seems to be having settles over us, too, in the Hudson Theatre, where the revival marked its official Broadway opening Monday night.
Parker and Broderick star in all three of the evening’s one-act plays, each built around a couple in Room 719 of the Plaza Hotel — a classic Simon setup that accords them both ample opportunity for high-caliber cavorting and clowning. They’ve found a winning collaborator in director John Benjamin Hickey, himself an actor with well-developed muscles for vinegary farce. On this occasion they do proud the memory of Simon, once the undisputed king of comedy on Broadway, where in his heyday in the late-middle 20th century he had multiple hits running at the same time.
Simon’s specialty in such comedies as “The Odd Couple” and “The Sunshine Boys” was the abrasions raised by too much togetherness. He was a student of the New York Jewish School of Perpetual Aggravation, a branch of the dramatic arts that posited the only meaningful intimacy was the kind in which you got on your loved one’s nerves, hourly. To Simon’s characters, love means never having to say you’re sorry, mostly because you’re too busy fixating on each other’s serious inadequacies.
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This thesis is borne out in the Hudson most propitiously in the third playlet, “Visitor From Forest Hills,” in which Parker and Broderick portray Norma and Roy Hubley, parents of Mimsey (Molly Ranson), who is supposed to be getting married at the Plaza on this day. Instead, she has locked herself in the bathroom, a predicament that leaves Norma panting with mortification and Roy obsessively contemplating the waste of an $8,000 wedding. (Hey, it’s 1969!)
The hoops Norma and Roy are compelled to go through to try to get Mimsey to unlock the bathroom door prove ideal physical-comedy fodder for Parker and Broderick. Outfitted by costume designer Jane Greenwood in a mother-of-the-bride dress so redolent of springtime it might have to be mulched, Parker bounces around the room, filling it with free-floating anxiety. Broderick, boiling in paternal frustration, has a hilarious moment on the suite’s window ledge, fighting off pigeons as he executes the most outrageous maneuver possible in the effort to breach the bathroom.
An audience’s comfort level is sustained in direct proportion to the expertise of the players. And so here, all is well. The acting couple is so in the zone that a mishap at the opening night performance only made things funnier: Broderick’s Roy at one point is supposed to run at the bathroom door, fail to break it down and batter his arm. On this occasion, the door gave way. Broderick looked around helplessly, and then at Parker, and after they shared a laugh, he gently closed the door. And the scene went on.
That is how it’s done by the pros, and these two have been doing it all their acting lives: Parker was a replacement for Andrea McArdle in the original 1977 production of “Annie,” and Broderick portrayed Eugene Jerome in the 1983 premiere of “Brighton Beach Memoirs” by … Neil Simon. They convey here a lovely sense of a Broadway continuum that is reflected, too, in John Lee Beatty’s resplendently detailed set of Room 719, a luxe facsimile of a Plaza Hotel room — complete with a view of the General Motors Building. When you want a fantastic New York interior, Beatty is unbeatable.
Simon had a tendency to write long in some of his comedies. That predilection is evident on this occasion, too, especially in the first act, “Visitor From Mamaroneck,” which probably seemed like a much fresher idea back in the late 1960s: a suburban couple, in this case Sam and Karen Nash, celebrating their 23rd anniversary — or 24th? Karen isn’t sure — as their marriage is coming apart. Broderick and Parker are fine, but the premise is an artifact, and the predictability eventually leads to a staleness.
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Act 2, “Visitor From Hollywood,” is a spikier, shorter segue into satire. Broderick is Jesse Kiplinger, a big-time film producer who has lured his high school sweetheart, and now Tenafly, N.J., homemaker Muriel Tate, to the suite for some hoped-for hanky-panky. You groove on the actors’ joy in digging into the ploy, because the characters’ vodka stinger-aided intentions are not only telegraphed, but also identical. Muriel’s purported evasions provide Parker with a juicy platform for splendidly exuberant coyness, and Jesse’s clumsy attempts at amorous suavity allow Broderick to demonstrate the comedic subtlety for which he’s not always sufficiently recognized.
To be sure, the hyperbolic tornadoes whipped up by “Plaza Suite” originate in a bygone era, one for which theatergoers of a certain vintage will respond with instinctive affection. I swear that I can still hear my mother on the night in 1969 when she and my father returned from seeing “Plaza Suite” on Broadway, and her repeatedly cracking up as she recounted the jokes. She’s gone now, but Parker and Broderick brought her back to life for me on their opening night, by making me laugh, too.
Plaza Suite, by Neil Simon. Directed by John Benjamin Hickey. Set, John Lee Beatty; costumes, Jane Greenwood; lighting, Brian MacDevitt; sound, Scott Lehrer; hair and wigs, Tom Watson; music, Marc Shaiman. With Eric Wiegand, Molly Ranson, Danny Bolero. About 2 hours 45 minutes. At the Hudson Theatre, 141 W. 44th St., New York. 855-801-5876. thehudsonbroadway.com.
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