By Russ Tarby
Contributing Writer
Have you heard what they’re saying about Charley and Myra? Charley’s been shot and Myra’s been cheating. At least that’s some of juicy gossip you’ll hear at CNY Playhouse which is staging Neil Simon’s “Rumors,” surely the silliest script the award-winning playwright has ever penned.
The premise promises a perplexing puzzle. At a tastefully appointed Sneden’s Landing townhouse, Charley, the deputy mayor of New York City has just shot himself, causing a mere flesh wound. While friends gather for Charley and Myra’s tenth wedding anniversary, the host lies bleeding upstairs, and his wife is nowhere to be seen. In fact, neither Charley nor Myra are ever seen at all in the play!
Anyhow, Charley’s lawyer, Ken, and wife, Chris, must get their story straight before the other guests arrive. Mis-communications mount, both interpersonally and telephonically, and Simon turns the confusion into comedy of the broadest sort.
Simon peppers his swiftly paced script with 1980s pop culture allusions. He mentions Meryl Streep, Mikhail Gorbachev, Trivial Pursuit, Birkenstocks, TV game shows and rock’n’roll. When the couples decide to mislead police by staging a dance party, the record they play is Richie Valens’ “La Bamba.”
Blair Dawson and Josh Taylor reprise the roles they tackled in 2008 when “Rumors” was produced by the Baldwinsville Theatre Guild. They portray Chris and Ken Gorman, a lovely, laid-back blonde and her hyperkinetic husband.
Amy Prieto and Jack Sherman appear as Claire and Lenny Ganz, a hand-on-the-hip hussy and her fussy husband.
Matt Gordon and Julia Jaremko portray Cassie and Glenn Cooper, a hot-blooded, quartz-bedazzled brunette and her less-than-loyal politician husband.
And Chelsea Lembo and Lanny Freshman play Cookie and Ernest Cusack, she a flamboyant TV chef and he a cerebral white-haired psychoanalyst.
Lembo was raised in Central New York but made her acting bones in Boston and Cambridge. After returning to Syracuse last June, she was cast in CNY Playhouse’s “Boeing-Boeing,” a 1960s French farce in which she played an over-worked and under-appreciated Parisian maid.
In “Rumors,” Lembo gets physical, crawling out of the living room on fingertips and tiptoes, and takes two bruising but funny falls from the couch and the easy chair. And when Cookie suffers back spasms, Lembo writhes like a worm on a hook.
Lembo’s Cookie is a real character! She speaks with an authentic Noo Yawk accent, and she’s bizarrely costumed in what she explains is a 60-year-old outfit inherited from her Russian grandmother: a long, black lace shawl over a sparkly pink evening gown topped off with a red fox stole and a black bejeweled beret. Kudos to costumer Stephanie Long.
Regardless of her character’s outlandish attire, Chelsea Lembo has stage presence to spare. Even when she’s between lines, she remains very much in character, sharing silent asides and flashing farcical facial reactions.
The entire cast revels in the show’s wackiness. Taylor is especially effective in the second act after his character is temporarily deafened, he demonstrates a fine feeling for comic timing. Whenever Ken responds to incorrectly heard information, laughter loudly ensues. As Ken’s disconcerted wife, Dawson displays an affinity for deadpan humor, and she uses her big, blue eyes to punctuate her spoken lines.
Sherman’s Lenny Ganz hems and haws but ultimately — disguised as Charley — delivers a lengthy and ludicrous explanation of the night’s occurrences to two clueless cops played by Jim Molloy Sr. and Keith Arlington.
Director Korrie Taylor has acted in two previous productions of “Rumors” and her appreciation of Simon’s sense of humor carries the day here, as she keeps her cast of 10 all working together to send the laugh meter well into the red.
“Rumors,” produced by Robert Searle, runs at 8 p.m. June 20, 21 and 22, at CNY Playhouse, located near the Macy’s entrance at on the second level of ShoppingTown Mall. Tickets cost $20 on Thursday and $22 on Friday and Saturday; cnyplayhouse.org; 315-885-8960.
