Kalamazoo Civic Theatre recently opened their production of “California Suite.” WMUK’s Gordon Bolar has this review.
California Suite contains four scenes set in one room of the Beverly Hills Hotel. In each of these one-acts, the battle between the sexes takes center stage. As in many Neil Simon comedies, these encounters don’t bode well for continuation of the relationships.
In some ways, Simon’s 1976 play California Suite seems a curious choice for the Civic Theatre. There are better written, better known, and funnier Simon scripts to choose from. The play’s predecessor, Plaza Suite, is similarly constructed and has a much tighter script.
It also seems that a major concern for a community theatre attempting to stage this or any show is the ability to cast the play’s eleven roles with actors who are well-paired with their characters and with their love relationships. Unfortunately, casting is one of the baffling elements of director Dr. Quincy Thomas’s Civic Theatre production of California Suite.
Alyssa Laney as Hannah and Nolan Surach, as William, do manage to coax a few titters from the lines in Scene 1. The two performers never really get up on step, however, with either pitch or volume to produce the kind of vocally animated, back-and-forth, zinger-filled banter that, according to references in Simon’s script, this divorced couple is capable of producing.
The conflict between Hannah and William centers around the affections of the couple’s seventeen-year-old daughter. Since neither actors, nor the script, deem these stakes high enough for much in the way of emotional investment, audiences will likewise be disinclined to care.
Scene Two opens with forty-two-year-old Marvin Michaels attempting to evict a comatose call girl from the bed of his suite, before the imminent arrival of his wife, Milli. The dramatic question here is, will Marvin be able to remove the drunken body, or at least talk his way out of it? Although this requires the use of some interesting physical comedy, there is just one problem.
In this production, but not in Simon’s script, Marvin is played by a performer who is clearly female, with pinned-up hair, feminine features, and a pencil-thin mustache.
This confusing contradiction hangs over the scene, generating question after question about what we were intended to assume. It was also the subject of consternation and conversation among nearby members of the audience at the Sunday matinee I attended. There are shows where deliberate cross-sex casting is viable. This Neil Simon comedy is not one of them.
Because it presents similar challenges for the audience, let’s now consider Scene 4. After an angry Mort, played by Akeyme Reese, assists his limping wife into the hotel room, we learn that this mixed-doubles couple has a score to settle off the tennis court. Although Reese is believable as the offended husband, and we expect sparks to fly in the ensuing testosterone-infused conflict with Stu, husband of the opposing mixed-doubles couple, once again there is a big problem.
Stu, written by Simon as a male, is played by a female performer with a handlebar mustache glued to her upper lip. Although the actress playing Stu gives it a valiant effort, just as the actress playing Marvin in the Scene 2 embraced her male role with total commitment, Stu’s brawl with Mort was a mismatch that didn't work as an example of male toxicity. To make matters worse, many sight gags centered around the groin area between the two struggling characters intended to be cast as males were marred by the obvious fact that one of the pair was played by a female.
More than two centuries ago, Samuel Taylor Coleridge coined the phrase “Willing Suspension of Disbelief” as a prescription for the audience’s enjoyment of the play before them. As I considered the cross-sex casting I saw on stage Sunday, I concluded that it takes more than spirit gum and a fake mustache to make me willing to suspend my disbelief for this production.
Other facets of the production kept me from full enjoyment of what could have been a brisk Neil Simon comedy. These include the set design for the bedroom that kept some actors’ faces from being seen by the audience for long periods of time, and the frenetic waiving of limbs by some performers. This distracted from, rather than reinforced, the sense of their respective lines.
I am pleased to note that one performance quietly lifted the evening. In Scene 3, Kevin Morse, as Sidney Nichols, delivers a solid supporting portrayal as the husband of an Academy Award nominee, Diana. Morse shows us a British antique dealer deep in his gin, contemplating the changes his wife’s Oscar might bring to his semi-closeted, bisexual lifestyle. Unlike other scenes in “California Suite,” Morse’s conversations with his spouse are steady, nuanced, thoughtful, and provide a welcome reveal to this character’s inner life.