Those who have seen the 1967 Jane Fonda-Robert Redford movie Barefoot in the Park should find the current Bay Theatre production comfortably familiar and funnier than remembered.
Written in 1963, this is the second play by Neil Simon, who went on to become one of the most successful playwrights in history, winning more Oscar and Tony nominations than any other writer and the only playwright to have four Broadway productions running simultaneously.
As in many of Simon's plays, Barefoot is set in New York and draws on the playwright's life experiences, here the story of his life with his first wife, Joan.
In his first directing venture for Bay Theatre in Annapolis, Peter Wray has assembled a skilled professional cast and created a show that rarely seems dated although the central characters have not lived together before marriage.
Wray presents authentic people comically trying to understand and accept each other in a less complex era.
Fast-paced action that often rings true brings out the play's comedic richness.
Complete opposites Paul and Corie Bratter are just back from a six-day honeymoon at the Plaza Hotel and grappling with the realities of living in a top-floor apartment of a New York City brownstone without an elevator, and having no heat, no bathtub and a large hole in the skylight. As the play opens we find bubbly free-spirit Corie, who chose the apartment without noticing these problems, waiting for her furniture to be delivered as she cheerfully welcomes the telephone repair man, delivery man and finally her husband.
Last seen as rodeo rider/drifter Eddie in Bay's Fool For Love, versatile Ben Russo is hardly recognizable as stodgy young newlywed attorney Paul Bratter. Vivacious Megan Dominy, a recent University of Oklahoma graduate, makes her Bay Theatre acting debut as Corie. Together, the couple have enough chemistry to make us root for them to overcome a series of trials including those resulting from divergent opinions on the advisability of arranging a blind date between bohemian upstairs neighbor Victor Velasco and Corie's mother.
Russo's Paul is a conservative, buttoned-down, stuffed-shirt who conveys his love for Corie, concern for her mother and career ambition along with his sensible approach to life. This is in opposition to irrepressible, irresponsible, effervescent child-woman Corie, who Dominy manages to make almost lovable.
