There is something amiss at Myra and Charlie Brock’s 10th anniversary shindig.
When the first guests — Charlie’s attorney Ken, and his wife, Chris — arrive, Myra and the house staff are missing and Charlie is unresponsive and bleeding in another room.
What to tell the other guests?
In Neil Simon’s farcical romp “Rumors,” little lies turn into big rumors, innuendo and all-out confusion as Ken and Chris try to conceal what’s behind the door.
Live Theatre Workshop Director Rhonda Hallquist says audiences should think of it as the game telephone gone horribly awry.
And in Hallquist’s hands, with a cast of talented and funny actors, the play, which LTW is mounting Jan. 6 through Feb. 12, takes hilarious twists and turns.
“This play could be done completely straight as a high comedy and it would be funny,” Hallquist said. “But I am blessed with a bunch of actors who also are good at physical comedy so there is going to be hijinks. They are bringing the funny every night.”
Simon wrote the two-act comedy in 1988 when he hit a personal rough patch in his life. He told the New York Times that he was processing a divorce and the death of his son-in-law at the time and felt the need to work. But he wanted to do something entirely different than the semi-autobiographical trilogy of ‘’Brighton Beach Memoirs,’’ ‘’Biloxi Blues’’ and ‘’Broadway Bound” that preceded “Rumors.”
Although Simon is best-known for his comedies, “Rumors” was his first stab at writing a farce, which requires far more open doors, winding roads and dead ends that keep characters second-guessing what’s going on.
In other words, everyone has a story and everyone has a problem, and all of those stories and problems get tangled up and distorted so that you lose sight of the fact that there’s a man in the other room bleeding and unresponsive.
“Every successive guest couple that comes in adds on more supposition and some are in the dark until halfway through while others are racing to cover up what has happened,” said Hallquist.
LTW was supposed to present “Rumors” in 2020 but had to postpone it due to the pandemic. Hallquist said the cast got together for a read-through on Zoom several months ago in anticipation of rehearsals in November.
“It was so much fun,” she said.
“Rumors” stars a top-shelf cast of veteran actors: Annette Hillman, Keith Wick, Stephen Frankenfield, Shanna Brock Bottom, Steve McKee, Lesley Abrams, Lori Hunt and Matt Copley.
