STAGE REVIEW : Simon’s ‘Barefoot’ Is Just Nostalgia

NATIONAL CITY — Lingering longer than a quarter of a century, Neil Simon’s “Barefoot in the Park” has become a quaint nostalgia trip, a look back, with laughs, at the way men and women once related to one another.

Lamb’s Players Theatre has tried to update this comedy about a newlywed couple. Instead of complaining about an outrageous New York rent of $125 a month for a tiny little walk-up (shocking, isn’t it?), now the couple reels from a monthly payment of $950.

But it’s hard to update the dynamics of the couple’s relationship. The story, one of Simon’s earliest, remains relentlessly conventional--by 1950s standards--and therefore predictable. Hard-working lawyer-husband Paul Bratter and his playful, childlike wife, Corie, fight about the proportions of work and fun in their lives.

Paul, the breadwinner, is a serious fellow who would like to get a good night’s sleep so he can win the big case tomorrow. Corie, who seems to have nothing to do during the day except call her husband and think up wild things to do when he comes home, wants to walk barefoot in the park in the middle of winter and ride the Staten Island ferry to check out the food at a new Albanian restaurant where they can party until 3 in the morning.

In other words, even though there is no neat-versus-messy conflict, it’s a battle of opposites, as in Simon’s classic “The Odd Couple.”

But it’s also a long way from a modern reality in which any couple that is less than rich can get by only if either both of them work or if the homemaker works extremely hard to make ends meet. In the latter case, said homemaker probably has neither the money nor the inclination to party until 3.

Still, because this is Neil Simon, the laughs come quickly and easily. And because the production is by Lamb’s Players Theatre, it’s professionally done.

Under Kerry Meads’ direction, the cast’s comic timing is impeccable. Meads’ husband, Rick Meads, a Lamb’s associate artist who has matured into one of Lamb’s finer company members, plays Paul with good deadpan delivery. Cynthia Peters portrays Corie with exuberant charm. Sandra Ellis--Troy as Corie’s long-suffering, widowed mother (a conservative chip off Paul’s block) does some great double takes on meeting the swashbuckling Victor Velasco (Joe Nesnow), whom Corie tricks her into dating.

And Jim Matney steals the show with nary a line as the briefly seen delivery man who is so out of breath when he climbs the five flights of stairs that he can’t say a word as he gestures for Cory to sign the delivery papers.

Mike Buckley, the veteran Lamb’s set and lighting designer, offers up a staircase that suggests the steep climb to the tiny, cleverly detailed apartment. Veronica Murphy Smith’s costumes are colorfully appropriate--a funky, highly individual style for Corie and muted, conservative choices for Paul and Corie’s mother. Rick Meads’ sound design has fun with the musical choices, but lacks any reference to New York City sounds--particularly those of a busy apartment building.

But despite the care that obviously went into this production, the play ultimately leaves one with the question of what the point of staging all this was.

One woman in the audience talked between acts about how she’s always loved the play because she once lived in an apartment like that as newlywed herself, and it brought back old times. For the critic, too, it is academically interesting to see where the roots of Simon’s comic construction started and how the years have deepened him. In “Barefoot in the Park,” a frankly semi-autobiographical tale inspired by his own happy first marriage, there is a glibness to the jokes, a sunniness to the construction, an inevitability to the ultimate carefree conclusion.

But Simon’s wife died and he has since remarried thrice, twice to the same woman. The struggle of those ensuing relationships have come out in his later plays. “Chapter Two,” starring his second wife, Marsha Mason, was about his then-existing marriage to Mason.

In “Barefoot in the Park,” Simon pairs Corie’s mother with Mr. Velasco--and, conveniently, makes the pairing work. Much later, in “Broadway Bound,” the playwright writes about the mother of his alter-ego, Eugene, and leaves her at the end of the play, abandoned and alone. The humor and cleverness of narration is consistent from the early to late plays, but the understanding of human nature has become more truthful.

One suspects that Simon could never go back to a “Barefoot in the Park.” And with the rest of his canon to choose from, one wonders why anyone else would want to, either.

“BAREFOOT IN THE PARK”

By Neil Simon. Director is Kerry Meads. Set and lighting design by Mike Buckley. Costumes by Veronica Murphy Smith. Sound by Rick Meads. Stage manager is Barbara D. Smith. With Cynthia Peters, Mark Howen, Jim Matney, Rick Meads, Sandra Ellis-Troy and Joe Nesnow. Shows at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday. Through Sept. 12. Tickets are $15-$19, with discounts available to groups, active-duty military, youth and seniors. At Lamb’s Players Theatre, 500 Plaza Blvd., National City. Call 474-4542.