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Neil Simon's 'California Suite' Is Bittersweet Comedy at SVP
Somerset Valley Players director learns why Neil Simon comedy makes audiences laugh and cry.
Hillsborough, NJ – Neil Simon is a legend on Broadway. Over 30 plays written. Countless Tony awards and the Pulitzer Prize. A theater named after him. How did he do it?
“I can’t think of a humorous situation that does not involve some pain,” he once said. In other words, he makes us cry until we laugh or laugh until we cry.
The Somerset Valley Players, Hillsborough’s award-winning, nonprofit community theatre, is tackling one of Simon’s classic comedies, California Suite, opening on Friday, March 2.
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Director Todd Bennington is SVP’s in-house Simon expert. “California Suite is the fourth Simon play I’ve directed here,” Bennington said. “He has a way of telling a story with dramatic poignancy and hilarious farce. His real gift, though, is creating characters that the audience instantly relates to. I love hearing audience members talking about the characters during intermission and after the show. Each of his plays is an homage to the human experience.”
California Suite is actually a quartet of four diverse vignettes that have only one thing in common: Their characters have all stayed in the same suite in a Beverly Hills hotel.
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“Each of the playlets exudes the Simon touch – sharp zingers, sarcastic retorts, jabs, jokes, one-liners, slapstick – coupled with incredibly tender moments of vulnerability,” Bennington explains. “Neil Simon’s work is as real as it gets for me. I love to direct it.”
Producer Ed Hayden adds, “Audiences understand the stories California Suite tells. A divorce and shared custody of a child. A regretted affair. A loving, but ambiguous, marriage. A vacation that has gone on a bit too long. And SVP’s intimate performance space will make the audience feel like they’re right there in that hotel room.”
For Stage Manager Harriet Trainor, the challenge lies in treating the hotel suite itself as a character. “Our set recreates a posh hotel suite. The rooms have to feel rich and real. Staying in this suite impacts each couple in the show. It has to be special.”
To let Simon have the last word, his advice to aspiring comedy playwrights was not to “try and make it funny…try and make it real and then the comedy will come.”
California Suite runs March 2-18, at the Somerset Valley Players theater on 689 Amwell Road (Rout 514) in Hillsborough.
For tickets and show times go to www.svptheatre.org.
