THEATER REVIEW : MARQUIS CAPTURES RAYS OF SIMON’S ‘SUNSHINE’

SAN DIEGO — Forty-three years is a very long time for any pair of human beings to put up with each other’s quirks and foibles.

Neil Simon knows this. He also knows that the long-lasting couple doesn’t have to be married to harbor a rich vein of comic material. They don’t even have to be speaking to each other.

Willie Clark and Al Lewis, two old vaudeville troupers billed as “Lewis & Clark” in the good old days, have plummeted into the mid-’70s looking nothing like “The Sunshine Boys,” the show biz label that reportedly followed these bickering comedians around the circuit. They haven’t worked together in 11 years, but according to Clark they haven’t spoken to each other for 12.

The Marquis Public Theater has captured the fun of Simon’s play, “The Sunshine Boys,” in a production that is not without flaw but does offer a good look at the playwright’s knack with character.

A lot of people can write one-liners. Few besides Simon can mold them so brilliantly into the lovable, gruff perversity of a Willie Clark (Sheldon Gero), shuffling around his New York walk-up in pajamas and slippers, too old to remember his lines and too young to stop bothering his nephew-agent about getting him work and bringing his doctor forbidden cigars on Wednesdays.

The nephew, Ben Silverman (Sam Gooch), finally gets him a job--a good one. But it means Clark will have to patch up his differences with his old partner, Al Lewis (Norbert Ehrenfreund), for a television appearance in a comedy special. The job means a lot of money, which neither has seen in their 11-year separation, if they will work together again.

It also means much silly bickering between the two old codgers in a priceless display of human comedy. The last time they saw each other was after an Ed Sullivan Show, when Lewis announced that he was retiring. Clark never forgave him for it.

As Willie Clark, Gero displays a kind of gut feeling for the character’s perspective. He barks and growls but his love for Al Lewis shines through the smoke screen. His big complaint is that for 43 years, Lewis jabbed him in the chest with his finger during their act, spouting lines Clark insists were calculated to shower him with spit.

Ehrenfreund is a marvel of control as Lewis, now living a quiet retired life in New Jersey with his daughter. He also loves his mismatched partner, but neither of these stubborn old men will ever admit how much they miss one another.

Their first meeting after so many years includes a delightful tea-drinking scene, which Ehrenfreund steals with barely a lift of his elbow. His lines are fewer, but Ehrenfreund works, brilliantly, from the inside out, shoring up the occasional passage where Gero’s timing is fumbled by forgotten lines. Both actors appear to be having a wonderful time and the feeling is contagious.

Gooch doesn’t seem so happy to be playing the straight man for this cantankerous duo. His workmanlike performance as Clark’s nephew leaves him with nothing to draw upon later in the play, when the character talks about his feelings. Gero works around him, bouncing jokes off the blank wall of an actor whose mind is elsewhere.

Elie Freedman is much more lively as the bosomy blond nurse in Lewis & Clark’s doctor skit, playing up the kindergarten humor with a good-natured attitude that keeps the atmosphere light. Mary Lynn does likewise in dual roles as a patient in the skit, and Clark’s real nurse later on, adding sprightly good humor to the nurse character, who is much abused by the bedridden comedian.

Douglas Younglove does fine in a small part, but the off-stage voices of Al Phillips and Gene Ericson, as a TV director and announcer, are difficult to hear.

Otherwise, Ellery Brown’s sound design works well, filling in such nice details as a whistling tea kettle and a stream of daytime television. The run-down apartment designed for Willie Clark by Phil Burns and Sam Gooch is particularly appealing with its cutaway walls bearing old photographs and its cluttered, aging feeling.

Despite the dead spot created where the nephew’s straight-man character needs to be, director Minerva Marquis has produced a fine showcase for Neil Simon’s gifts.

Simon’s imitators are many, but none have found his secret. It lies buried within the breast of men like Willie Clark and Al Lewis. They just happen to say things that are so perfectly, humanly true we have to laugh.

THE SUNSHINE BOYS by Neil Simon. Directed by Minerva Marquis. Set design by Phil Burns and Sam Gooch. Light and sound design by Ellery Brown. Stage management by Kelly Grenard. With Sheldon Gero, Sam Gooch, Norbert Ehrenfreund, Douglas Younglove, Mary Lynn, Eli Freedman, Al Phillips, Gene Ericson. Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. through Sept. 27 at the Marquis Public Theater, 3717 India St.