Review: RUMORS at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre

Neil Simon's Rumors is a sharply written farce of the highest order and thanks to director Bobby Wyckoff and his cast, the show is given an appropriately updated revival at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, providing the perfect respite from the midwinter chill that's plagued Middle Tennessee throughout the month of January.

Led by the superb Mike Baum and Lydia Bushfield, it's a fast-paced comic tour de force for Wyckoff's talented players who deliver the goods with charm and wit. First presented on Broadway in the 1990s - to much critical acclaim and audience ardor - the script for Rumors is given the requisite tweaking by Wyckoff and company to make it relevant to 2010, updating some of the cultural references to make it more timely. Thankfully, Simon's script remains as sparkling and funny as ever and its look at rumor-mongering and the accompanying hoopla is as relevant today as it ever was, perhaps even more so now thanks to 24/7 media coverage.

Here's the set-up: A group of well-heeled friends have been invited to the home of Myra and Charlie Brock in Sneeden's Landing, New York (about 45 minutes outside of New York City, where Charlie works as deputy mayor of the Big Apple), to help celebrate the couple's 10^th wedding anniversary. As the friends begin to arrive, they discover things are quite out of the ordinary at the Brock manse.

First to arrive are married lawyers Ken and Chris (played by Derek Whittaker and Trin Blakely) who find a distraught Charlie bleeding profusely from the ear, no food has been prepared for the party, the servants are gone and Myra is no where to be found!

Jumping to conclusions and fearing what ill-founded rumors might mean for Charlie's political future, Ken jumps into crisis management mode, just in time to greet arrivals Lenny and Claire (the aforementioned Baum and Bushfield, both of whom give the performances playwright Simon must have had in mind when he created the characters), Ernie and Cookie (Charlie Winton and Judy Tamble) and Glenn and Cassie (Ben Dawson and Christina Spitters). As the plot unfolds and the misguided machinations of Ken and Chris fall apart thanks to the completely daft party guests, all sorts of hilarity ensues - this is farce, after all - and there's all manner of door-slamming and mistaken identities.

Simon's script is exquisitely crafted and wrings laughs from even the most mundane and expected elements in the play, but if the cast isn't up to the task, even a Neil Simon script can fall flat. Wyckoff's impeccable pacing and expert blocking of the scenes on the fashionable living room set ensure that this production of Rumors will delight even the most cynical of audiences.

The cast is top-notch, with Baum giving a splendid performance that allows him to show his superb timing and complete confidence onstage. He is ably matched by Bushfield as his acerbic wife; she delivers every line with panache and an easy grace that illuminates Simon's terrifically funny words.

Whittaker is at his very best as Ken, delivering a pitch-perfect comic portrayal. Blakely fares less successfully in the play's early moments, although she hits her stride midway through the first act with self-assurance and a certain sense of style. Winton is fine as the analyst Ernie and his interplay with Tamble, cast as his TV cooking show host wife, is believably charming. Tamble's horrid costume notwithstanding, she gives a credible, eager-to-please performance. Kelly Lapczynski, as Officer Welch, is absolutely terrific in the role, embuing her character with just the right amount of cynicism and world-weariness.

Two newcomers to the Chaffin's Barn stage - Ben Dawson and Christina Spitters - give such nuanced performances - and their characterizations are so wonderfully on-target - that Simon might be tempted to change the play's title to The Real Housewives of Sneeden's Landing. Spitters is, quite frankly, the spitting image of any of the showy, blowsy, over-the-top housewives of New York City or New Jersey who tend to populate the Bravo TV line-up on any given Thursday night. Dawson and Spitters are both real finds and, I suspect, will be seen frequently on Nashville stages.

- Rumors. By Neil Simon. Directed by Bobby Wyckoff. Produced by Janie and John Chaffin. At Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, through February 6. For reservations, call (615) 646-9977 or visit the company website at www.dinnertheatre.com.

In the photo: Ben Dawson, Trin Blakely and Charlie Winton, photographed by John Chaffin

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