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 finish🅷ing another play.
So I am pleased to report that, from Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, Simon’s hu🔥mor 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 , where it’s already taken in more than $12 million.
A college f𝓰riend’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 crackiꦛng 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 . And yet, under John Benjamin Hickey’s canny direction, it ma😼nages 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 symbꦏol 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 che🌳ck tag as a souvenir from those d🌠ays and now keeps it in her dressing room for good luck.
She and Broderick are enjoying all that Boston has to offer, ea🐓ting 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 steady𓃲 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 ha💫ir. “She knew Joan was there, and she wanted Matthew to look good,” a source says.
Another source says: “Everythinဣg a🧔bout 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.