Last Of The Red Hot Lovers

Play (1969)
by Neil Simon

With Brooks Ashmanskas (Barney Cashman), Leslie Bibb (Bobbi Michele), Susie Essman (Elaine Navazio), Heidi Schreck (Jeannette Fisher)

It is the late 1960s and Barney Cashman is a middle-aged, married New York restauranteur desperately trying to have an affair. Over the course of ten months, he tries – pathetically – to do so with three different women, arranging with them for trysts at his mother’s apartment while she is gone. Each of the three acts represents an interaction with each of the women.

First, nervously, Barney attempts a liason with Elaine Navazio (Susie Essman), a straight-speaking, cynical, married woman he has met in his restaurant.

Secondly, with a bit more confidence, Barney engages with Bobbi Michele (Leslie Bibb), a beautiful but crazy woman he encounters in a park.

And, finally, Barney attempts to connect with Jeanette (Heidi Schreck), an old family friend. That last interaction spurs interesting dramatic results.

This is a beautifully constructed play that, in a sense, emerges out of nowhere. Though the subject of the play, sexual exploration and infidelity, is fodder for complexity, it survives here bare and austere, without much of an internal plot.

But the implications of the complexities of Barney’s psychology – decent but frustrated – gradually build. The third act provides the most vivid addition of dimension to this complexity and turns a more casual and bemused exploration of sexual adventuring into a taut personal drama.

Amazingly, Simon can take the most nothing of subject matters and turn it into real theater. Of course, he provides funny lines along the way, showing his formidable talent as a gag writer. But the real success of his plays results from his capacity to put gag material in service of something gutsier.

In this play, one travels from feeling pure pitiful disdain for this hapless middle-aged sexual incompetent towards compassionate understanding. The first two acts are quite straightforward, and one only sees them as prefatory when the third act comes around. In that denouement, the speeches are revelatory and complex. One marvels at how much develops from what in the earlier acts seems like so little.

Brooks Ashmanskas (Barney) employs a gentle physical clownishness which is perfect for the role. Throughout, he portrays Barney as dumpy enough to be both pathetic and adorable. But his enactment of the character evolves. By the time the opening of the third act comes around, Barney cavorts into his mother’s apartment with apparent confidence and abandon, so different from his initial sheepishness. Through that evolution of Barney’s facile clownishness, Ashmanskas persuasively reveals the vulnerable buffoonery beneath.

Endearing schlubs have become a big hit in the movies in recent years – witness all the hits by Judd Apatow starring Seth Rogen, or the various very recent Mark Duplass films like Your Sister’s Sister and Safety Not Guaranteed. Yet, here is a forty-five year old dramatic comedy that features an endearing schlub whose desire to transgress comes smack up against his reliable side.

As Elaine, Susie Essman brings the brashness and direct sarcasm known so well in her connection with the character of Susie on Larry David’s series Curb Your Enthusiasm on HBO TV. She is less aggressive in this role, but equivalently blunt.

Leslie Bibb (Bobbi Michele) amusingly but hauntingly reveals the underlying insanity which dwells beneath her character’s striking blonde hair and lithe figure.

As Jeanette, the old family friend, Heidi Schreck offers a distinctive portrait of a woman tied in knots and unsure how to regain freedom. With Ashmanskas, she ably offers, in the third act, the moral twist that brings the entire play to fruition.

The acting is good all around and Jessica Stone’s entertaining but thoughtful direction correctly emphasizes the larger contours of the drama rather than highlighting the gags. That is the clue to interpreting Neil Simon’s plays effectively, taking their more obvious jabs at humor as the seasoning rather than as the substance.

– BADMan