6 Rms Riv Vu

Pioneer Press

May 3, 2006
BY BEVERLY FRIEND

While the coded abbreviation of the ad - 6 rms riv vu - announces the availability of a six room apartment with a view of the river, the best view is actually inside the empty rooms on Riverside Drive when two would-be renters (married, but not to each other) inadvertently get locked inside.

Brilliant casting sets lissome Brenda Barrie and exuberant Lee Adam as Anne Miller and Paul Friedman, a delightful pair, magnetically drawn ever so gradually (but inexorably) together.  Great chemistry! They can hold their own against the actors who played these roles in a TV version of the 1972 Broadway comedy:  Ala Alda and Carol Burnett.

Neither Anne nor Paul is a philanderer.  neither has ever strayed.  The comic and the romantic moments between them are sensitive rather than broad.  What makes the play touching is the way Anne and Paul slowly get to know each other, moving from a discovery of mutual college friends, to an even more important discovery of mutual likes, interests and values.

In parallel history, neither has fulfilled the promise of college days.  As a copy editor, he peddles toothpaste as a housewife, she spends her days sorting socks.  Paul is especially aware of and rueful about being a member of a non-achieving generation.  Barrie plays Anne as a shy mother of two, diffident, and embarrassed and she initialed fears a flirtation, let alone a full blown affair.  Both are in analysis and his psychiatrist is the mentor for hers.

Playwright Bob Randall does a splendid job, making the characters believable and sympathetic as we follow their initial frustration of being imprisoned in the apartment and learn more and more about them as they bond.  Their marriages are more unsatisfactory than actually unhappy.  Both wed rigid, controlling mates who make decisions ranging from furniture to philosophy.  But Anne loves Richard (John Oster) and Paul loves Janet (Lessa Bouchard), and neither have any plans to leave their spouses.

So --will they? Or won't they tangle? And if they do, what next?  Although the pair dominates the stage for almost the entire play, a fine ensemble supports them.  Rounding out the cast, Sean David Worsfold is delightful as Eddie the building superintendent, who continually appears and reappears, munching on cookies, to work on the door know that causes all the problems.  Anne Korajczyk plays a pregnant woman who is al interested in renting the spacious apartment, while Nancy Pollock nearly steals the show as a nosy, noisy, neighbor, the dog-loving woman in apartment 4A.  Kudos to Jeff M. Galus for fine direction, and to the entire cast for excellent timing.

If Act I is like watching the knitting of fine fabric, the second act is devoted to its unraveling.  But not to worry, the ending provides hope for a fine, new garment.  Congratulations to St. Sebastian for culminating its 25th season with such a well-performed, sprightly offering.