THE RUMOR THAT RUMORS
IS A SCREAM IS NO RUMOR
The late playwright/screenwriter Neil Simon remains one of America’s most beloved creators of comedy. His plays often hinge on ludicrous setups, as in his classic Rumors, directed by Larry Williams at Sonoma Arts Live.
Covering up evidence of poor judgment is a foolproof gambit that works beautifully in this 1988 slamming-door farce. Friends arrive for Myra and Charlie Brock’s 10th anniversary party to discover that Charlie has shot himself through the earlobe in a botched suicide attempt. Myra is nowhere to be found. Do they tell the other guests, or try to keep it secret? If the others find out, can they be trusted to keep mum?
Katie Kelley and Jimmy Gagarin
Jimmy Gagarin and Katie Kelley get the show off with a bang (sorry) as married lawyers Ken and Chris Gorman. Ken tends to Charlie in an upstairs bedroom while Chris paces about in a vodka-fueled panic. They call his doctor for advice, dragging him out of a Broadway show, but they lie about what happened. Charlie, after all, is Deputy Mayor of New York City. Attempted suicide could spell trouble for his career and for guests yet to arrive.
Matt Farrell and Chelsea Smith
Two at a time, guests appear: Accountant Lenny Ganz (Max Geide) with his socialite wife Claire (Jenny Veilleux); psychiatrist Dr. Ernie Cusak (John Gibbons) with his culinary guru wife Cookie (Bright Eastman); and finally, aspiring politician Glenn Cooper (Matt Farrell), feuding with his irritable glamour-puss wife Cassie (Chelsea Smith). Each addition compounds a rapidly escalating plot, bolstered by absent domestic help and the characters’ recurring need to dash to the bathroom. Altogether, they’re a fine cross-section of New York’s professional class, Simon’s favorite comedic target. Outside their highly compensated specialties, they are bumbling incompetents.
Gibbons delivers his lines in an annoying New York accent, rendering everything he says as an accusatory whine. His castmates engage in plenty of similar whining self-pity, part of the appeal of the long-running TV series Seinfeld. It’s such a cliché that we could almost believe that whining is the lingua franca of New York City. The characters in Rumors have a consistently overblown sense of victimization that makes them easy to laugh at, except for NYC investigator Officer Welch, stoically played by Mike Pavone. He gives every line a no-nonsense cut-to-the-chase street-cop authenticity.
Mike Pavone as Officer Welch
As Chris, Kelley evokes worried neurosis as she talks to the doctor about Charlie’s condition. She proves a most unconvincing liar in trying to steer the evening’s focus away from the obvious, counterbalanced by Veilleux, who gives Claire more solid footing. Gagarin’s Ken vacillates between hard-charging decision maker and cringing neurotic. An accidental gunshot renders him temporarily deaf, a plot device propelling much of the silly tale. Simon milks it dry, but the excessiveness didn’t seem to bother anyone in the nearly full house on opening night.
The cast
Eastman’s Cookie is by turns addled and assertive, her character hampered by intermittent back pains. Farrell is tremendous as the self-serving politician Glenn, slated for a run for a state senate seat. The bickering between Glenn and Cassie is viciously enjoyable. Gary Gonser’s excellent set design turns the small stage into a believable two-story town house, whose six doors see plenty of slamming in this fast-paced comedy.
The castAnachronism alert: Rumors is set in the late 1980s. Costume designer Roxanne Johnson supports the illusion by putting the women in Dynasty-style dresses and big hair—delightful and all to the good. But the only music in the show—it could use more—has no relation to the period. When everyone decides that it’s time to dance, they do so to Richie Valens’ “La Bamba,” the 1958 pop-rock version of the Mexican folk song. A better choice would be Kaoma’s 1989 hit “Lambada,” the tune that launched the long-running worldwide dance craze. It’s not clear if Simon specified “La Bamba” or if that was a director’s choice.
When Claire goes to start the music, she fumbles with a vinyl record in a cheap reproduction console radio, a stage prop that conveys “recorded music” to the audience, but is strangely out of keeping with the otherwise upscale pitch of the show and its subjects. Trendy New York socialites like Charlie and Myra—whom we never meet—would certainly have something more substantial in their living room. Most folks aren’t likely to notice or care; Rumors would be hilarious transposed into any period
Max Geide’s penultimate scene of Lenny’s near-total-panic explanation of what happened is brilliantly and extravagantly over-the-top, a great closer for this can’t-miss comedy.
photos by Miller Oberlin
Rumors
Sonoma Arts Live
Andrews Hall, Sonoma Community Center, 276 East Napa St. in Sonoma
Thurs-Sat at 7:30; Sun at 2
ends on June 15, 2025
for tickets ($25-$42), call 707.484.4874 or visit Sonoma Arts
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Barry Willis is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association and president of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle.
