Simon says

Granite bows with Second Avenue

by Bill Rodriguez

THE PRISONER OF SECOND AVENUE. By Neil Simon. Directed by David Jepson. With David Jepson, Emilietta Godfrin, Wayne Alan Hawkins, Beth Campbell Stemple, Carolyn J. Trebisacci, Sue Staniunas. At Granite Theater through November 5.

Unless an asteroid hits with uncanny accuracy, we will always have Manhattan, and with it the twin arts of kvetching and coping with mental stress. When Neil Simon's The Prisoner of Second Avenue was sent to London last year, its author remarked on the 1971 play's timelessness, observing that today's corporate mergers and firings would maintain the nervous breakdown rate quite handily.

The comedy was chosen as the premiere production of the new Granite Theatre in Westerly. The company does an acceptable job, getting out of the way of the laughs -- which come at a rat-a-tat sitcom pace.

The set-up has a nice focus. Mel and Edna Edison (David Jepson and Emiletta Godfrin) are an irascible ad account executive and his overly accommodating wife. We meet them at 2:15 a.m. one hot summer morning, with him fulminating about wee-hour garbage collection and paper-thin walls and worried sick about losing his job. She yes-dears him to a faretheewell. Think Richard Dreyfuss and Marsha Mason (London) or Peter Falk and Lee Grant (Los Angeles). In Westerly, Jepson maintains a convincing wise-ass personality, although we could use some real worry peeking through. Godfrin presents a comical case study of the patient enabler, although even an eye-roll or two would help us see more than a patsy.

For all his limitations, Simon knows his craft. As a writer for Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows in the early '50s, tossing out one-liners alongside Woody Allen and Mel Brooks, he learned to bag gags with the fervor of blood sport. When his writing gets annoying, it's because his funny-at-any-price enthusiasm makes him lie a lot. Characters can say and even do things not out of natural motivation, but because the playwright needs a laugh. But when Simon finds a fertile conflict (think The Odd Couple) or an honest persona (as in the autobiographical Brighton Beach trilogy), he stops being crafty and becomes a playwright.

The opening scene exhibits Simon's strengths and Jepson's facility. It's a long and-another-thing stand-up comic rant by the beleaguered husband, but as psycho-drama with the wife as therapist. As the smell of garbage drifts up to the 14th floor, he fumes that in a couple of years they're going to be on the third floor. Mel deteriorates as the play progresses, fired, watching his wife bring home the paycheck, and driven crazy by an expensive five-day-a-week shrink who refuses to ask questions. He works himself into a state of flat-out paranoia.

This is virtually a two-person play -- but not quite. In an impractical touch that only a sure-draw like Simon could get staged, four other characters take over for a single conversation among themselves. In the middle of act two, Mel's brother and three sisters are in the Edison living room, discussing how to help out financially. All are well-intentioned, but when the reality of forking over hard cash hits, things get complicated. Harry (Wayne Alan Hawkins) is the responsible oldest sibling, who went to work at age 13 and resents all the attention lavished by the sisters on Mel, the baby of the family. Pearl (Beth Campbell Stemple) is talkative and take-charge. Jessie (Carolyn J. Trebisacci) is sentimental and weepy. Pauline (Sue Staniunas) has a generous heart that keeps asserting itself, but her mind gives her a hard time letting go of money. No-nonsense businessman Harry is the one who insists they have to cover their brother's doctor bills. In this very funny set piece, he says they must each chip in to pay "X," and the sisters gradually grow terrified of the algebra, worried that they can afford only M or maybe just D.

Granite Theatre is in the space that Colonial Theatre had before they lost their lease. The production values of this first show are good, with expensive furniture and even a kitchen sink visible in another room. And the plush new padded seats certainly are more inviting than the church pews that used to be there. Jepson, who has staged productions at City Nights Dinner Theater in Pawtucket, is the artistic director of the troupe as well as director of this play. Staging Neil Simon is a comfortable start for them, an undemanding crowd-pleaser. But since they're trying to fill the void left by Colonial Theatre, which staged some wonderful musicals, it would be good for them to get more ambitious.