'Laughter' heard at college theater
Play Review
By Sally Carpenter sallyc@theacorn.com

After churning out a number of successful light comedies, in a rather selfindulgent move playwright Neil Simon turned to his own life for inspiration, writing no less than four semiautobiographical plays. "Laughter on the 23rd Floor," presented by Moorpark College Theatre Arts, harkens back to Simon's early career as a jokesmith on Sid Caesar's "Your Show of Shows."

The 23rd floor of the title refers to the drab office in a New York skyscraper where the writers for "The Max Prince Show" gather daily to dream up jokes that will entertain millions of Americans for 90 minutes live on TV each Saturday night (sort of a forerunner to "Saturday Night Live"). Considering the tribulations and ego clashes of the characters, it's a wonder they wrote so much as a page.

There's the sarcastic and Groucho-like Milt (Raymond Hebel), who works to support wife, kids and mistress; Val (double cast with Nick Fritsch and Sebastian Kittel), the Russian immigrant who writes English better than he speaks it; Brian (Alex Janckila), the lone gentile in the room who boasts about selling screenplays he hasn't written; Carole (Brooke Fiss, Silena Smith-Shamey), the token woman on staff; the hypochondriac Ira (Ryan Lamoreaux), and Kenny (Nick Noble and David Wright), who strives to ease the boss' pain.

Max Prince (David Sanford) reigns over the motley group as the king of TV comedy. How Max functions is a mystery, as most of the time he's wacked out on pills, booze, stress and paranoia. He's a hottempered lunatic who punches holes in the wall, yet pays his loyal staff the best wages in town. Max is a largerthan-life character and Sanford plays the role with gusto.

The play, directed by John Loprieno, is a riot for those who like their comedy loud, brassy, raucous and vulgar. Think of it an R-rated version of "The Dick Van Dyke Show." The writers trade insults, barbs and locker room humor with abandon.

The high-energy cast is almost too peppy for its own good. Constantly shouting the dialogue doesn't make it funnier. The actors plow through the lines so rapidly that jokes aren't heard. Occasionally the physical action climbs too far over the top. The cast might do well to listen and pause for audience laughs.

Underneath the zingers, though, serious issues such as artistic integrity are addressed. NBC cuts the "Prince" show to 60 minutes and censors the writing. Max vents that the network wants the writers to deliver only garbage to the viewers. He's angry, but what can he do, bound by a contract? It's a struggle still faced by today's TV writers.

The Red Scare rears its ugly head as Carole brings word of Sen. Joseph McCarthy's blacklisting efforts, which in real life ended the career of many film artists.

Carole also raises the issue of working women in the 1950s. She feels she must talk dirty like the men to get ahead and wants recognition as a "good writer," not a "woman writer." Of course, it's hard to ignore her gender when she delivers her Great Speech nine months pregnant.

The only other woman in the show is, naturally, the secretary, Helen (Melissa Pinza, Nichole Blackburn), who runs errands for the guys and types up their writing. She wants to be a comedy writer too, but she's so lacking in confidence and wit that this hardly seems likely. In this play, comedy is still a man's job.

The show has the New York Catskills circuitstyle of selfdeprecating humor one expects from Simon, but it's painful to see the veteran craftsman resorting to cheap laughs over men dropping their pants and, yes, even flatulence jokes.

Another disappointment is that we don't see enough of what makes the "Prince" show great except for one brief rehearsal in which Sanford gives a dead-on Marlon Brando impersonation.

The set, framed by towers, is inspired. Look closely along the walls to see images of 1950s TV shows and reproductions of period magazine covers.

The play continues through this weekend on the Main Stage, Performing Arts Center of Moorpark College, 7075 Campus Drive. For tickets, visit www .MoorparkCollege.edu/theatre.