Last year, Danny DeVito starred with Richard Griffiths in an acclaimed revival of Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys in London. Arrangements were made to bring the production to Los Angeles but then Mr. Griffiths passed away so DeVito is now starring opposite his old Taxi cohort, Judd Hirsch. In case it isn't obvious, DeVito plays Willie Clark, the larger of the two roles, the one played in the movie by Walter Matthau. Hirsch has the George Burns role.
It officially opens October 2 so I guess it's unethical of me to review it from the preview Carolyn and I saw last evening, even if I was going to say that the play is very funny, that DeVito is good and Hirsch, though newer to the role, is even better. I'm tempted to recommend it since it's only here until November 3 and tickets are likely to be scarce once word gets out on how good it is. But I'll refrain from saying any of that.
What I will say is that I've seen some pretty good productions of The Sunshine Boys over the years, incuding the strange one with Jerry and Dick Van Dyke — which I liked a lot despite the absence of a Jew anywhere on stage. I've also seen some poor mountings of Mr. Simon's play, including an awful one with Jack Klugman and Tony Randall. Klugman had his surgically-restored voice then and while one could admire his persistence, and note that once upon a time, Klugman might have been perfect casting for Clark, he was playing his music on a very limited instrument that was painful to the ears and heart. Also, Randall adopted an odd Jewish accent…and what we got was the only time I've ever attended live theater and wished the actors onstage had been dubbed.
But the oddest version of all the odd versions was about twenty years ago. My great friend Howie Morris had been doing the Lewis role in an occasionally-touring production that featured Abe Vigoda as Clark. One was lined up but then Vigoda had to drop out for some reason and the promoters decided to cancel and refund…a decision that pained Howie, who needed the bucks due to his most recent annual divorce. He went to them and said, "If I can get another familiar TV star, will you go ahead with it?" They said okay and Howie began calling famous friends, most of whom were already booked for something on the relevant dates.
He wound up with Brian Keith of Family Affair fame. While it isn't absolutely necessary for the leads in this play to be Jewish — Danny DeVito sure isn't — there's such a thing as being so goyishe (and maybe more importantly, removed from the basic style that was vaudeville) that you can't connect with the material. That is if you know the material and Mr. Keith, I'm afraid, did not.
Or at least he didn't at a local preview Howie invited me to attend. The idea was to do the show a few nights for friends in L.A. and get critiques and input before they took the show to some other state and audiences therein. We all sat there with the "Springtime for Hitler" look on our faces as Brian Keith — always a superb actor on the screen — ad-libbed his way through much of Neil Simon's play and missed the point of the intermittent lines he did remember.
Howie got it all. Howie had done the show many times, knew the lines and more importantly, knew the comedic tradition. It was his kind of play but not Keith's. So what you had on stage was two men not performing the same play. One's questions did not connect with the other's answers, and while Howie was doing Neil Simon up there, Brian Keith was doing Arthur Miller or Tennessee Williams. The audience squirmed and did its best not to giggle rudely at blooper after blooper, and Keith's attempts to inject pathos into lines that from other mouths evoked laughter. I was sitting behind Rip Taylor and at intermission, I heard him say, "What an embarrassment." When Rip Taylor is embarrassed at what someone is doing on stage, you know you're at a theatrical event you will long remember…and not for good reasons.
Finally, mercifully, it was over. Howie had sweat away about forty pounds — or about half his body weight — and in the post-show milling, he nervously approached a few of us and said, "Well, any suggestions?"
There was an awkward pause and then someone — and it wasn't me but I kinda wish it had been — said, "I'd keep everything exactly the same but I'd advertise it as Death of a Salesman."