'The Sunshine Boys' Plods Along at the Beck Center

It's strange how some comedy material from even a few years ago feels dated (ie. the standup routines of Andrew Dice Clay), while the comedies of Shakespeare and Molière continue to delight after centuries have passed.

It's not that the material itself has cruised past its sell-by date, it's that the people in the audience have changed. This is particularly true with The Sunshine Boys, now at the Beck Center.

This play that the stage comedy master Neil Simon wrote more than 50 years ago still has all the set-ups and punchlines in the right places. And many of them do generate some gentle chuckles.

But despite the best efforts of the acting duo playing the title characters, the script indulges too many of Simon's favorite writing mechanisms—the instant reversals and the running gags—that drag down the pace of the show. Indeed, these running gags seem more like slowly-shuffling gags, desperately wishing for a place to sit down.

TSB is about two aging vaudevillians who have been asked to revive one of their sketches for a TV show about the history of comedy. Trouble is the two comics, Al Lewis (Rohn Thomas) and Willie Clark (Alan Safier), can't stand each other and haven't seen each other for 11 years.

Written in 1972, the show seems an attempt by playwright Simon to recapture the lightning in a bottle that was ignited by his 1965 blockbuster, The Odd Couple. But instead of presenting characters who are polar opposites, such as Oscar and Felix, The Sunshine Boys gives us two codgers who are virtually carbon copies (remember them?) of each other.

Willie and Al are both old, both quick with a put-down, and both delivering their lines with the same Borscht-belt ba-da-bum timing. All that's missing are rim shots. This situation becomes a bit tiresome since the essence of comedy is surprise, an element that is mostly absent in this script.

For the first 45 minutes we are warned by Willie and his nephew/theatrical agent Ben (Doug Sutherland) that the meeting with Al might be a disaster. Then, predictably, their meeting does occur and it devolves into lots of carping and kvetching for basically the rest of the play.

This intentional non-chemistry between the two leads works up to a point. As directed by William Roudebush the familiar shtick is mildly amusing, largely because Safier and Thomas are talented actors and know their way around a gag line.

But this is 2024 and we in the audience have had our comedy senses refined and restructured by plays, films and comedy specials that operate at a faster pace with an edgier tone.

After intermission in this nearly 2½-hour production, we are taken to the TV show stage where Willie and Al are trying to get through their doctor sketch. But wait, you'll never guess, they start arguing again. About the same things, using the same jibes and insults.

That interlude also includes some crass woman-ogling bits which may titillate some while triggering a gag reflex in others.

In sum, The Sunshine Boys is a slight and thinly amusing diversion if you don't ask too much from your comedy offerings. Kind of like a sitcom you've seen five (or 25) times before.

The Sunshine Boys
Through October 6 at the Beck Center, 17801 Detroit Ave., Lakewood, beckcenter.org , 216-521-2540.

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