N.Y. STAGE REVIEW : ‘Rumors’ a Not-So-Great Simon Notion

As a Living National Treasure of the Broadway theater, Neil Simon doesn’t have to write a new play every year. But he does.

“Rumors,” at the Broadhurst, is his 24th--his 25th, counting the female version of “The Odd Couple.”

What makes “Rumors” different from the other plays in the Simon canon is that it’s a farce. Whereas we were supposed to care for the people in the “Brighton Beach” trilogy, we don’t have to give a darn for the characters in “Rumors.”

We can feel sorry for the actors, though. As when “Rumors” tried out at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, the performers are as hard-pressed as paramedics rushing emergency equipment up somebody’s front walk and into the house. Quick, the defibrillator! Where’s that oxygen?

No one watching this play would deny that farce is hard work. And no one could fail to be amused at some of the physical images that Gene Saks’ cast come up with. Ron Leibman staggers around with a whiplash injury that would win him $3 million in any court in the land. Christine Baranski balances on one foot like a flamingo who has to go to the bathroom--a flamingo with a cigarette in its mouth. Check that. Two cigarettes.

Funny? Yes. Funny enough? No. And it’s a pity, for “Rumors” was just the sort of play that Simon needed to write as he came down from his autobiographical saga: That is to say, a trifle. But trifles can’t simply be dashed off. You need to have an idea.

“Rumors” doesn’t. It has a notion--something about how a man’s best friends will react in the face of his attempted suicide: selfishly. But Simon doesn’t want to write a black comedy, so he makes the friends more confused than selfish. Selfish would have been funnier.

There is also the notion that farce involves people sneaking into the next room. In “Rumors,” it’s the bathroom. This isn’t offensive, but it isn’t very promising in terms of plot development. In Feydeau, the bedroom is the place.

Feydeau knew that farce is tragedy waged by other means. In his plays, it’s absolutely crucial that the wrong door not open at the wrong time. When it does, the audience screams.

In “Rumors” we don’t see what would be so terrible if the police did come in (as, of course, they do). We may be relieved for the actors at the final curtain, but we’re not relieved for the characters, because they never were in trouble in the first place.

Because the plot doesn’t hang right, the jokes don’t either. After this play, Simon has no reason to get upset when people call him a manufacturer of one-liners, because “Rumors” is rife with them, some of which could have been lifted from Dial-a-Joke. When a psychiatrist in a pickle yells that “I’m starting to feel like one of my own patients!” he has got to have a funnier delivery than actor Andre Gregory does to make the line pay off.

Amazingly, “Rumors” got yocks, titters and howls at the Broadhurst the other night, proving that New York audiences are as easy to please as San Diego ones--at least as far as this author is concerned. Though the reviews weren’t terrific, “Rumors” will probably be around for years, especially in the dinner theaters.

But measured against Simon’s best work, this hit is a miss.