Play review: "Red Hot Lovers" delivers questionable mess
Jennffer Cahill
Capital Times Staff
Imagine a date with a
nymphomaniac, a compulsive liar, and a
hopeless depressant. It's enough to send
anyone running back to their wife.
Thursday, October 19, The Alpha-
Omega Players presented Neil Simon's
"Last Of The Red Hot Lovers" in the
auditorium of Penn State Harrisburg.
The play itself is a , cat-and-mouse
chase comedy which centers around
Barney Cashman (Jerry Baggot) , a New
York restaurant manager, in mid-life
crisis, who mourns his youth, lost
because he married his high-school
sweetheart.
From here, he arranges a secret
rendezvous with three different women in
his mother's appartment, setting up a
series of comic situations.
Barney evolves from an unhip
innocent, dressed in a blue suit, to a grey
suited gentleman, to a smiling open
shined charmer.
Originally, Neil Simon drew
inspiration for this play by the sexual
revolution of the 60's. It makes fun of
blurred roles and questions society's
values.
However, this play does not have the
same impact today as it did in 1969.
We've seen variations of the themes
many time on TV and on film.
For example, in the movie "The
Graduate," Dustin Hoffman plays a naive
young man , who is seduced by an older
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women.
And in "10," Dudley Moore is turned
off when Bo Derrick explains,"l make
love because it gives me pleasure."
We can alai tune into television's
"Three's Company" and watch Jack
Tripper chase the girls, or get chased,
around the couch.
But the play is funny. Things happen
to Barnie and around him, and by the
second act the theater goer forgets this is
a man cheating on his wife and
sympathizes with him and laughs at each
obstacle. Positive energy flows across
the open stage.
The comedy is most entertaining by
its use of everyday props,(such as a
pillow or a purse) and the mating dance
between characters.
The blue sofa, doilies, and family
picture album clue his dates and the
audience that we are not in a bachelor's
apartment.
Though there is a minimum amount
of scenery and no overt social message,
the play achieves a sense of history.
Director Drexel H. Riley fades and
opens scenes to the song, "What the
World Needs Now is Love Sweet Love,"
and groovy '6os instrumentals.
The ending was less than moving.
Barnie gains experience and a renewed
appreciation of his wife, as a "decent
truly loving person." He picks up the
phone and calls her.
This happy go lucky resolution
supports the theory that an affair can
save or improve a manage.
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Cast of "Red Hot Lovers" prepare to take a bow
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October 25, 1989, CAPI
photo by Richa