Judge Reinhold says he's OK with, even honored by, this description bestowed on him by the late Pauline Kael in The New Yorker magazine:
"Judge Reinhold is a very affable actor, a charming combination of Daffy Duck and Jimmy Stewart."
"I'm proud of that," he says, noting that Kael at one point also called him "a young man with an old man's name."
Reinhold, of course, is best known for his many comedic screen roles, including starring or prominent supporting characters in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," "Beverly Hills Cop," "The Santa Clause" and TV's "Seinfeld."
He makes his official Arkansas Repertory Theatre debut this week in Neil Simon's comedy "Laughter on the 23rd Floor.", playing Max Prince, the star of a hit 1950s TV comedy show where the writers are on a high wire, trying each week to create comedy out of chaos while contesting with sponsors, network executives and censors.
Judge Reinhold plays Max Prince, the manic star of his own '50s TV show, in "Laughter on the 23rd Floor" at the Arkansas Repertory Theatre. (Special to the Democrat-Gazette/Stephen B. Thornton) The play is based on Simon's experience as a writer on Sid Caesar's "Your Show of Shows," which appeared on black-and-white TV screens in 60 million homes every Saturday night. The writing corps also included comic geniuses who subsequently established themselves on their own, including Mel Brooks, Larry Gelbart, Carl Reiner, Selma Diamond and Woody Allen.
Reinhold's manic character, of course, is firmly based on Caesar. Ben Liebert plays Simon's alter-ego, Lucas Brickman, with Drew Hirshfield as Val Slotsky (modeled on Mel Tolkin), Jed Matthew Resnick as Kenny Franks (Gelbart), Gary Newton as Brian Doyle (Tony Webster), Lacy J. Dunn as Carol Wyman (Lucille Kallen and Diamond), Matt DaSilva as Ira Stone (Brooks) and Scott Cote as Milt Fields (Sheldon Keller). Finley Daniel plays Helen, a naive young woman hoping to become a writer. (Nobody onstage represents Allen or Reiner.)
If the setting feels familiar, it may be because the same thinly disguised show was also at the heart of the 1982 movie "My Favorite Year," told from the perspective of a young writer assigned to shepherd that week's unpredictable guest-star, an alcoholic swashbuckler (played by Peter O'Toole), based on Errol Flynn.
"This is the first actor I've ever played and he's really fun," says Reinhold. "He has these 'aha' moments — he has no filter, he says exactly what he's thinking, and sometimes he doesn't know what he's thinking until he says it. I relate to that."
In addition to being an insider's look at the process of comedy writing — or, as Reinhold puts it, "a love letter to comedy" — the play also reflects the political and social elements of the time in which it is set, including McCarthyism, censorship and contemporary attitudes toward women.
Ari Edelson is directing his second show at the Arkansas Repertory Theatre. (Special to the Democrat-Gazette/Stephen B. Thornton) COMEDY WITH MEAT
While it's "extremely rollicking," says director Ari Edelson, "It's a comedy with real meat inside. There are really fantastic themes inside this play — it's comedic but with real heart."
Reinhold has a local connection: He married Amy Miller, whose hometown is Little Rock, in 2000. (And this may not actually be his first time on the Rep stage — he recalls being in a Gridiron show, which area lawyers put on every two years at the Rep. But he doesn't recall the year or the circumstances.)
"Judge and I have been trying to find a project for three years," Will Trice, the Rep's executive artistic director, said in May 2022. After some pre-pandemic play readings failed to turn up one that worked, "we finally landed on this one."
"Will and I found it hard to find a straight comedy that doesn't veer off into other territory," Reinhold explains. "We just wanted to do a straight, [contemporary] comedy."
Too many modern comedies, adds Edelson, are too likely to run out of humor in the early going: "By the end of Act I, [the playwright says] 'I don't have any more jokes,' and things turn dark and dystopian."
This is Edelson's second show and second comedy at the Rep — he directed "Primating" in the summer of 2021 on a stage at the Little Rock Zoo. "If I could only do comedies like these, I'd be happy," he says.
"Your Show of Shows" was seminal both for the success of television and pretty much all television comedy since, Edelson and Reinhold agree.
"This was one of the first writers' rooms, and the medium [television] was so wide open," Reinhold says.
And, Edelson adds, the nature of comedic writing for mass entertainment "is still so much like this." TV comedy still focuses on "manufactured families of creativity," centering on a father/mother figure. Dysfunctional, perhaps, but, he says, "Every family, sooner or later, you do get [the kids] to school."
Matt DaSilva (center) gets a little dramatic in the writer's room rehearsing a scene from "Laughter on the 23rd Floor." (Special to the Democrat-Gazette/Stephen B. Thornton) A LOVE LETTER
The play, Edelson says, "is a love letter to a particular time and brand of comedy. You don't need to know 'Your Show of Shows.' Even a younger audience will see elements of comedy that made it into successor shows — sitcoms like 'Everybody Loves Raymond' and 'The Office,'" while the parody element evolved into Carol Burnett's show and "Saturday Night Live."
"In the history of comedy, this is where [all that] was born."
Caesar's show had its roots in vaudeville, but what Edelson calls "second-generation vaudeville," with mixtures of European film, contemporary politics, Borscht Belt comedy and the Yiddish theater circuit — "savvier, witty and urbane, more Abbott & Costello than straight-up song and dance."
Simon has described the play as very autobiographical, and, Reinhold says, "it's written very affectionately, with a lot of interpersonal stuff." Simon even makes a few inside jokes, including, Reinhold says, "a skit where everybody says 'Hail, Caesar.'" There's a certain amount of profanity — enough for the theater to give the show an R rating — "but it's beautifully placed, in a highbrow way, nothing [gratuitous]," Edelson says.
"They all care very much for each other," says Dunn, who plays the only female writer in the room. "The people you love bring out the best — and the worst — in you." The writers, she adds, are fixated on making the star look good: "Whatever it takes, they give him all the tools he needs to help him succeed."
And the group rhythm, she adds, is "quick, like popcorn."
It's up to Edelson, Reinhold says, to control the pacing.
"Ari is really adept at breaking the beats down, so it's not just people talking fast," he says. "This is a committed and conscientious group, and all of them have the drive to make this a great show. We trust Ari; that's so valuable, when you trust a director. He's created an environment; he knows what he's doing and where he's taking us."
‘Laughter on the 23rd Floor’
- What: Comedy by Neil Simon
- When: 7 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, Wednesday-Feb. 19. Shows this Wednesday and Thursday are previews.
- Where: Arkansas Repertory Theatre, 601 Main St., Little Rock
- “Rating”: R for adult language
- Sponsors: Chip & Cindy Murphy; the production is dedicated to the memory of Terry Sneed, “beloved artist and community member.”
- Tickets: $25-$65
- Restrictions: “The Rep is no longer enforcing covid-19 precautions such as masks, proof of vaccination or negative tests. Of course, if you have a cough, fever, shortness of breath or any other symptom associated with covid-19, please do not attend.”
- Information: (501) 378-0405; TheRep.org