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A CurtainUp 
London Review
London ReviewThe Prisoner of Second Avenue
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Are you worried about losing your job? I'm not worried about losing it, I'm worried about keeping it. — exchange between Edna and Mel
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Mercedes Ruehl as Edna and Jeff Goldblum as Mel (Photo: Johan Persson) |
The play opens with Mel's (Jeff Goldblum) litany of complaint. It's 2.30 am and it's too hot outside, 89 degrees, and inside the malfunctioning air conditioner is too cold. The street is too noisy, the German air hostess neighbours too sexually active and noisy but as his wife Edna (Mercedes Ruehl) artfully guesses, the stress is really related to Mel's employment.
What is special about Neil Simon's writing is we are laughing at what is essentially a tragic situation. It isn't quite black humour although at times it feels very dark and desperate as we realise that unemployment takes away not just financial security but self respect and this man's whole sense of worth. Mel Edison is over reacting, shouting, teetering on the edge of insanity for much of the play and unfortunately the biggest laugh comes when he is given a soaking on the balcony by the people upstairs he has been roundly abusing.
Goldblum's lanky, animated performance in striped pyjamas has plenty of comedy, pathos and sardonic humour as the Edisons cope with the burglary of their apartment. He delivers Simon's many one liners but doesn't give a glimpse of his character's deeper side which of course is as much due to Neil Simon's writing as Goldblum's acting. It may be that Goldblum's very physical and likable comedy interferes with the believability of his character's derangement. However Mercedes Ruehl as Mel does what she has to do very well and as the chief bread winner, her job takes its weary toll until she too will be falling over the edge. Hers is a delightful and well judged foil to the excesses of her rampaging husband whom we are sure would have himself stabbed or shot nowadays for raging at the public. When Mercedes as Edna starts to feel the strain, Goldblum as Mel miraculously regains his sanity but we are not sure how - other than a see-saw explanation — as she goes down, he goes up.
Director Terry Johnson puts this essentially American play on the West End stage but I suspect that those laughing loudest in the audience are native New Yorkers in London on vacation who I think "get" the humour on a deeper level than the less expressive Brits. Rob Howell's design has the apartment rather shabby but with 1970s accuracy which seems to scream less successful advertising executive and with not much of an aesthetic eye. The videoed news footage which links scenes is curiously irrelevant.
The scene where the siblings assemble to horse trade over how Mel should be helped seems to be from another play but it gives us the whining sisters (Patti Love, Amanda Boxer and Fiona Gillies) and Linal Haft as Harry Edison, Mel's kindly brother. It is impossible not to sympathise with the Edisons about the prospect of a financially limited old age as they sit in the final scene together staring from the sofa while the snow falls inside their apartment but there doesn't appear to be a deeper message about the human condition.
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| The Prisoner of Second Avenue
Written by Neil Simon Directed by Terry Johnson Starring: Jeff Goldblum and Mercedes Ruehl With: Amanda Boxer, Fiona Gillies, Patti Love News Report Cast: Colin Stinton, Alex Giannini, Mary Stockley and Jo Stone-Fewings Design: Rob Howell Video: Jon Driscoll Lighting: Neil Austin Sound: Gareth Fry Composer: Colin Towns Running time: Two hours ten minutes with an interval Box Office: 0844 412 4663 Booking to 25th September 2010 Reviewed by Lizzie Loveridge based on 15th July 2010 performance at the Vaudeville Theatre, The Strand, London WC2R 0NH (Rail/Tube: Charing Cross) |
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