Rumors @ ArtCentre Theatre (Plano)
Photos by Austin Atherton Photography
—Jan Farrington
The plucky cast of Rumors at Plano’s ArtCentre Theatre have taken on quite a challenge. Along with first-time director Mizani Washburn, they throw themselves completely into Neil Simon’s straight-up farce (as opposed to his usual sit-com-ish plays)—and do a pretty good job of keeping a thousand balls in the air for a couple of hours.
Dying is easy, the old playwright said, but comedy is hard. And farce—it’s a bitch. There’s soooo much plot, so much physical slapstick, and so many absurd “happenings” to explain. In the middle of a farce, audience members inevitably think about standing up and shouting: “WHY don’t you just TELL everyone what’s up? WHY don’t you call the COPS, tell the truth—and we can all go out for drinks?”
But that’s not how it’s done. So here we are, and here’s some of what happens:
Apparently, the Deputy Mayor of New York, Charlie, has shot himself in the head (or rather, through the earlobe) on the night of his 10th anniversary. Arriving party guests Ken (Javier Castell) and Chris (Bridget Tooley) hear the gunshot and find the doors unlocked. Charlie’s upstairs in a bedroom, and Myra, Charlie’s wife and the hostess, is nowhere in sight.
Why not call the local sheriff? In some ways, Rumors is a comedy of over-thinking things: Ken is worried there could be a scandal; he tells Chris to act clueless as they let the next party guests in. That would be Claire (Priscilla Garcia Dunson) and Lenny (Bo Benny); someone on the country road has smashed into Lenny’s posh new car. He comes in with his neck kinked at an odd angle, furious and hungry. (Watching Benny chew at a pretzel bag that won’t open is a tale in itself.) Of course Ken & Chris’s fake story falls apart, and Claire is eager to share gossip and “rumors” (aha!) about Charlie and Myra.
Ernie and Cookie (Nathen Menser and Brittny Messer on the night reviewed, Jorge Romero and Maddy Menser at alternate performances) arrive in a Volvo—the guests inside wonder if it’s the “Swedish police” coming to investigate. She’s a Julia Child-type TV chef, and takes over turning the raw food in the kitchen into dinner. Next to come are Glenn (Sam Baker) and wife Cassie (Nicole Hanson). In the late 1980s when Rumors was written, Simon was going through a divorce. I’d guess Glenn and Cassie are a comic version of his reality: they can’t breathe without bickering. Glenn is desperate to avoid any touch of scandal: he’s running “for the Senate,” he says pompously. “The state Senate,” Cassie throws back at him—disgusted at the thought of having to live in dull, frozen Albany, not D.C.
In true farce fashion, many doors are slammed, Charlie and Myra are never seen onstage, and the police (Caleb Santos and Samantha Andrews) finally arrive, to be faced with a series of shaggy dog stories that don’t hang together. It’s finally up to the hyper-tense Lenny to stop the action for (he hopes) a version that will convince the local law. (Benny’s ranting, rattled-off story ends with him jumping up and down in a frenzy.)
“I like it,” says the sheriff. (Santos, btw, has one of several pretty good New Yawk accents onstage.) He doesn’t buy it, not one bit—but he appreciates the effort.
There’s a twist at the end, of course—and to tell the truth, we never get to the actual bottom of the story. Rumors won’t be to everyone’s taste (and I don’t think Neil Simon tried a straight-up farce ever again!) but it’s an impressive thing to watch. At some point in the crazy plot, all the actors have moments that make us giggle or groan, or itch to get up and sort things out: and that’s what a farce is supposed to do.
WHEN: Through September 4
WHERE: ArtCentre Theatre, 1400 Summit Ave., Suite E, Plano
WEB: artcentretheatre.com
