Neil Simon’s Musical Fools

Reviewed by Stephen Fife
Open Fist Theatre Company
Through January 26

RECOMMENDED

As I watched Ron West’s production of Neil Simon’s Musical Fools, the thought kept crossing my mind: Oh yes, the holidays are coming. Because this is a perfect holiday musical. In fact, the more I think about it, it may be the perfect holiday musical for our times.

For one, there’s no mention of the holidays (love that!). For another, it’s consistently funny, but in the silly (even ridiculous) way that the holiday season seems to bring out in people. From the moment that Leon Tolchinsky (James Byous) bursts onstage and sings about his excitement at being the new schoolteacher for the town of Kulyenchikov, hired to tutor the daughter of Dr. Zubritsky, we are in the realm of zaniness, reminiscent of the Marx Brothers and other vaudeville-influenced comedians.

We soon meet the townsfolk of Kulyenchikov, who seem in competition for “the stupidest” and would be right at home in the movie Dumb and Dumber (“Stupid and Stupider”?) My personal favorite is Parvesh Cheena as a sheepherder who has lost his sheep and can’t remember his first name. His foolish expressions are priceless.

The idiocy of the villagers traces back to a curse put on them in 1691 by Count Vladimir Yousekevitch (Hank Jacobs) after his son Casimir (Jack Sharpe) committed suicide. The reason — the father of his lady love, Sophia, had rejected his suit due to his (Casimir’s) illiteracy. To be honest, this origin story is as silly as the townsfolk after the curse. No matter, it serves its purpose. The only way for the town to regain its intelligence is for the current day Sophia (daughter of the Zubritskys) to marry Count Gregor, the last of the Yousekevitch line. But schoolteacher Leon could also break the curse if he can re-awaken Sophia’s brainpower — though he only has 24 hours to do so. Meanwhile, it will shock no one to discover that the schoolteacher falls in love with the lovely (but brainless) Sophia and takes on the challenge, even though failure means that he too will become as stupid as everyone else in the town.

Got that? Yes, this is not Shakespeare. It’s not even Brighton Beach Memoirs or other Neil Simon plays with aspirations beyond tickling the audience’s funny bone. It does allow Simon to dig deeply into his bag of tricks and come out with vaudevillian banter such as:

LEON: I was just thinking…

DR. ZUBRITSKY: Yes? What’s that like?

And so on.

The performance level rises significantly with the appearance of Jason Paige as Count Gregor in Act II. Paige has by far the most compelling singing voice in the cast, and he’s also a dynamic actor with something very funny to play. After so much celebration of stupidity, it’s a wonderful tonic to witness the matching of wits between Count Gregor and Leon the schoolteacher. So hang in there during the occasional moments when the show lags (which it does), because the many “switcheroos” between Gregor and Leon are worth waiting for, and Paige and Byous know how to mine the comedy gold.

Still, nothing in the show has any real weight, and it’s not supposed to. It’s a marzipan holiday loaf, so sweet that your teeth ache. And just like the holidays, there is too much of it — it goes on too long, and you pretty much know what’s coming. But somehow it serves a purpose too, raising our spirits and giving us a break from the very bad national news we deal with every day, not to mention the fires and all the other terrors that constantly threaten to overwhelm us.

Speaking of which — all this tomfoolery, this idiocy, kept reminding me of a certain president and the effect that his persistent lying and gaslighting has had on this country, making us truly into a confederacy of dunces. Then, near the end of the show, the schoolteacher himself refers to “a certain politician” who has been dumbing us down. And this is what makes the show a great musical for this particular holiday season, as it slyly confirms our worst suspicions about the negative influence of this White House, while still allowing us to laugh at the untenable situation that we find ourselves in. And to cry a little bit too.

Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave., Atwater Village; Sat., 8:30 p.m.; Sun., 4 p.m.; Mon., 8 p.m. through Jan. 26. https://openfist.org/. Running time: two hours with one intermission.