One of the saddest sights I’ve ever seen on Broadway was Neil Simon, sitting by himself in the last row of the Nederlander Theatre, watching the final performance of a 2009 revival of “Brighton Beach Memoirs.”
It was a fine production, starring Laurie Metcalf, but it sold no tickets and closed after one week. The newspapers were full of stories of how Simon’s humor was passé, his era over. He died in 2018 without ever finishing another play.
So I am pleased to report that, with an assist from Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, Simon’s humor is poised to make a comeback. The couple are starring in a revival of “Plaza Suite,” Simon’s 1968 collection of three one-act plays. It’s a big, old-fashioned hit at the Emerson Colonial Theatre in Boston, where it’s playing a limited run before previews begin in March at Broadway’s Hudson Theatre, where it’s already taken in more than $12 million.
A college friend’s mother went to see it the other day with her theatergoing friends and they had “the best time of their lives,” my friend told me. Parker and Broderick went up on their lines a couple of times, but had so much fun cracking each other up, the audience was delirious.
Simon’s widow, the formidable Elaine Joyce, descended on the production last week and, I’m told, loved just about every minute of it. She, Parker and Broderick unveiled two plaques that have been installed at each end of the last row of the theater. They mark the miles Simon paced as he watched the out-of-town tryouts of “Plaza Suite,” “The Odd Couple” and “Promises, Promises.”
Parker and Broderick play new roles in each act, all of them set, aptly enough, in a suite at the Plaza hotel. In the first, poignant part, they play a couple whose long marriage is fraying. The second act, about a Hollywood producer trying to seduce an old flame, could be dicey in the Harvey Weinstein era. And yet, under John Benjamin Hickey’s canny direction, it manages to evoke a bygone era without ever sliding into creepiness. Slapstick dominates the third act, as Parker and Broderick play a married couple trying desperately to coax their daughter out of a bathroom she’s locked herself into on her wedding day. Broderick’s attempt to get into the bathroom by walking along a ledge while swatting away pigeons brings down the house.
The original “Plaza Suite” starred Maureen Stapleton and George C. Scott. Parker and Broderick are perhaps the only two contemporary actors who can evoke the memories of those two giants while making the roles their own. Broderick has a long history with Simon, having starred in the original productions of “Brighton Beach Memoirs” and “Biloxi Blues.” And for all her renown as ’90s sex symbol Carrie Bradshaw, Parker knows her way around the middle-aged ladies of “Plaza Suite.”
She last played the Colonial in 1976 in a play called “The Innocents.” She “lifted” a coat check tag as a souvenir from those days and now keeps it in her dressing room for good luck.
She and Broderick are enjoying all that Boston has to offer, eating after the show at the Palm Steakhouse, strolling the Freedom Trail, exploring the North End, and even taking the T from time to time.
A steady stream of celebs has come up to the show, including John Slattery and Talia Balsam. More are expected to see the last of the run this weekend.
Photographer Joan Marcus was up the other day to shoot the show. Parker stopped rehearsals at one point to fix Broderick’s disheveled hair. “She knew Joan was there, and she wanted Matthew to look good,” a source says.
Another source says: “Everything about this production is old-school Broadway at its best.”
It’s too bad Neil Simon isn’t around to see it himself.
“Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning” airs weekdays on WOR Radio 710.
