Neil Simon’s ‘Rumors’ Lands on Broadway Among Mixed Reviews

Neil Simon’s “Rumors” pleased audiences in San Diego despite mixed notices, and that’s likely to be true on Broadway, where it opened Thursday night--to very mixed notices indeed.

Simon’s first full-length farce concerns an anniversary dinner party that blows up when the host shoots himself in the ear lobe. Simon has revised the script somewhat since it opened at the Old Globe theater earlier this fall, but it’s basically the same play and the same hard-working cast, all in black tie or skin-tight cocktail dresses.

The yeas included most of the TV critics and the New York Post’s Clive Barnes, who opened his review with “Broadway has something to cheer about again!” and went on to praise Simon’s farce for being “light, frothy and fun. It is as significant as a cream puff and just about as nourishing. But beautifully baked and cunningly filled.”

The nays included the Daily News’ Howard Kissel, who thought that “Rumors” showed Simon writing to get a laugh, however thoughtless, every 2 minutes, rather than writing to say something about people, as in his autobiographical Brighton Beach plays.

Frank Rich of the New York Times didn’t mind Simon’s setting out to write a farce but thought that he hadn’t done so. “Mr. Simon never creates the real sense of jeopardy necessary to make his premise spin into a riotous plot. Rather than do the exacting work required to craft a farce, he casually empties out a file cabinet’s worth of often tangentially relevant jokes. ‘Rumors’ is to farce what a sitcom is to comedy.”

Newsday’s Linda Winer gave the show the benefit of her doubts, but her doubts were strong. As for the plot, “the stakes do not seem high enough.” As for the jokes, “Simon is seldom at the top of his comedy form here.

“But there is much to recommend the evening. The characters are sharply drawn and the 10-actor cast gives itself over completely to the nonsense at hand.”

Gene Saks’ cast generally came in for praise, particularly Ron Leibman and Christine Baranski, whom Rich called “priceless nuts. One only wishes the logic of Mr. Leibman’s performance were matched by that of the script.”

Reviews notwithstanding, “Rumors” has had a heavy advance sale and will probably get good word of mouth. “What can I tell you--I’m laughing,” a woman was heard to say at a recent preview.

DEFINITION OF THE WEEK: From Clive Barnes’ review of “Rumors”: “A workable difference between farce and comedy--a difference so often misinterpreted--could be that farce is about people while comedy is about life. In neither instance do the people or the life have to be real--but it has been known to help.”