Barefoot actors take Arkansas stage

New production of Neil Simon comedy takes The Rep on a trip to the park

— Even famed playwright Neil Simon had to start somewhere. Having all those hit comedies, that is, and while Barefoot in the Park was his third play, it was his first hit, some 43 years ago.

"The Rep has never done the show, and this will be my first Neil Simon play to direct," says Robert Hupp, the Rep's producing artistic director. "After coming off of our last show, It Happened in Little Rock, I wanted a light-hearted comedy to change the pace a little bit. And looking at our body of work, I realized it had been years since The Rep had done Neil Simon, and there's been a lot of attention given to Barefoot in the Park recently, with its recent Broadway revival, and its having turned 40 years old.

Place

Arkansas Repertory Theatre

601 Main Street, Little Rock, AR

Arkansas Repertory Theatre

"I reread almost all of Neil Simon's plays as we were selecting the season, and this is the one that I thought was the most charming, relevant and the one that I wanted to direct."

When Simon first wrote the play, it ran for 1,530 performances on Broadway, making it his longest-running show. Robert Redford played Paul, the male lead, and Elizabeth Ashley played his new bride, Corie. The setting for the comedy is the apartment that they rent and the conflicts that occur, especially once Corie's mother, Mrs. Banks, appears and encounters an eccentric neighbor, Victor Velasco.

Simon then adapted his play for a 1967 movie that starred Redford again, plus Jane Fonda. In 1970, ABC-TV presented two new series based on Simon's plays: The Odd Couple and Barefoot in the Park, which was one of the earliest network series that had a black cast.

The play's timing and opportunities for romance and connections between the characters were all part of what made Hupp's decision easy. The play is being produced as it was written, to be set in 1963, even though some of the actors were not around then and have had to be told the meaning of things like "party lines" on telephones and mechanical ice trays.

Costumes will be from the 1960s era, but wigs are not going to take the place of classic hairdos on the women.

"Bob doesn't like wigs," says Alanna Hamill Newton, who plays Mrs. Banks. "I had to dye and cut my hair, which was traumatic for my little daughter, just so I could look like Corie. So no wigs, but there's lots of hair spray and back-combing and teasing."

The six-person cast is a mix of locals, former locals, new locals and nonlocals, a somewhat rare combination at The Rep.

Whitney Kirk, who plays Corie, was Miss Arkansas in 2003, is a native of Cabot, a graduate of Ole Miss and now lives in New York.

Christian Pedersen, who plays Corie's new husband, Paul, is a real-life resident of a sixth-floor apartment in New York, where he's a member of the NYC BBQ Enthusiasts Club. Tall and blonde, Pedersen had the sort of chemistry with Kirk that Hupp was looking for, even though they didn't audition together.

"It's a real ensemble play, where everybody brings something into the story line," Hupp explains. "When casting your couple, you look for these two very different people, the free-spirited Corie and the very straightlaced husband. They look great together and have all those other ingredients I was looking for when I went to New York to audition people."

Kirk and Pedersen laugh at the contrast between their roles and their real selves, as they describe themselves as more like their partner than their role.

"I'm more like Corie than I'm like Paul," Pedersen says.

And Kirk says just the opposite.

"I'm more like Paul than Corie," she says.

"But I totally get who Paul is," Pedersen adds. "He lives in here somewhere. He tells me 'be on time' and 'comb your hair.' That part just doesn't usually win. I hope my brother can come to the play, since it's like I'm playing him."

Newton is one of the new Arkansans.

Since June, she and her husband and their children have been Little Rock residents,thanks to her husband's job opportunity in central Arkansas. Newton has previous Rep experience in My Fair Lady, Moonlight and Magnolias and the Kaufman & Hart readings.

"What I love about this play is how sweet it is," Newton notes. "It's so funny, but it's so hopeful and loving, and very much about transitions. Corie and Paul are newlyweds, and how difficult that can be, and for Corie's mom, she's alone now that Corie's moved out. Everybody works together to fill that void, and how it's so beautifully realized, I love writing that teaches you while it entertains in such a very, very easy way."

Steve Marshall, who plays Delivery Man, is also a recent addition to the population ofLittle Rock. He wrote and produced WKRP in Cincinnati, Growing Pains and other TV shows and co-wrote the film Revenge of the Nerds II. Earlier in his career, he played Paul.

"It's funny, how the lines pop up in my head, still," Marshall says. "I hadn't thought of this play in years and years. I have the smallest part in the show now, but it's quite memorable."

Robert Lydiard plays eccentric upstairs neighbor Victor Velasco. A veteran of nearly four decades of stage, screen, TV, clubs and cruise ships, he has been in eight productions of Hello, Dolly! and in two Academy Award-winning movies: The Paper Chaseand Amarcord.

"I just did the role of Victor out on Long Island," he says. "I've been relearning most of the elements. The words don't change but the blocking and new set, environment, definitely change, and the people involved.

My character is a world-renowned eastern European chef."

Jason Thompson, who plays Telephone Repair Man, has been a member of the Red Octopus company for eight years and has also acted at The Rep and Murry's Dinner Playhouse.

"I come in and install the phone and come in and repair it after they fight," Thompson says. "I'm the young genius telephone repairman."

Set designer and technical director isMike Nichols; sound designer is M. Jason Pruzin and properties director is Linda Kwallek. Guest staff consists of costume designer Stephanie Khoury and lighting designer Tony Mulanix.

Hupp says the shows at the Rep this season all share a setting in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

"It was an unintended consequence when we set up the season," Hupp says. "There's almost a naivete, a hopefulness about this play and these characters and how their futures are so bright and their lives are so wonderfully simpler without cell phones and computers and iPods and so on, so it's a flashback to another era, but the play has a real contemporary feel in terms of the relationships among the characters."Barefoot in the Park 8 p.m. today-Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday; 7 p.m. Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays, through Nov. 11, Arkansas Repertory Theatre, Sixth and Main streets, Little Rock. The Oct. 31 performance will be sign-interpreted for the hearing-impaired Tickets: $35, $20 Oct. 30: Friends of the Rep will host BrewHaHa a pre-party at 6 p.m.; tickets are $15 for party and play (501) 378-0405 or (866) 684-3737 or www.therep.

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Weekend, Pages 72 on 10/26/2007

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