Last of the Red Hot Lovers

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

It was a smash hit when Neil Simon first wrote Last of the Red Hot Lovers in 1970, and it continues to be a smash-hit today with one brisk exception. At Miners Alley Playhouse in Golden under the astute direction of Richard Pegg and a mind-boggling spectacular cast, Last of the Red Hot Lovers is a brilliant, stunning, hilarious smash-hit.

(From Left to Right) Vanessa Bowie, Paige L. Larson, Verl Hite, Missy Moore from Last of the Red Hot Lovers.

I could stop right here. That’s all that needs to be said.

Well, hardly.

Verl Hite neatly wraps himself in Barney Cashman’s blue suit and hair fringed baldness. Married 23 years to Thelma, a dependable, loyal, decent person, Barney owns a fish restaurant having carved out a decent respectable living. His ship having sailed on smooth waters, the 45-year-old suddenly realizes he has everything except excitement. Spice is what he lacks and spice is what he wants. What does a 45-year old successful businessman do to spice up his life? Have an affair, that’s what.

For Barney, however, there’s one small problem. As a successful restaurateur, he knows exactly what to do. As a dependable husband, he knows what to do. He has no clue how to go about having an affair. Knowing his mother volunteers at a local hospital one day a week, he can lay claim to her apartment in the Turtle Bay area of Manhattan until 5 PM.

Michael R. Duran applied his magical insight designing a gorgeously appointed upscale set for the meticulously kept apartment. His mother obviously a perfectionist demonstrates this with doilies placed just so, family photos arranged at deliberate angles which all plays a vital role in Barney’s miscalculations.

Having nervously flirted with a woman who regularly comes to his restaurant for lunch, he invites Elaine Navazio to the apartment on a bright December afternoon. Missy Moore grabs Elaine by the throat and lets her rip with as a hard drinking, cigarette smoking femme fatale, who thinks she knows why she’s there, is ready for immediate action. Moore so transforms herself, she goes totally undetected under the guise as Elaine.

From the moment Barney sneaks into the apartment with his little brown bag from Bloomingdale’s containing two glasses so he doesn’t have to use his mother’s, and an attaché case with a small bottle of scotch, closing the blinds so no one can see him, he is way over is hysterical head. Elaine toys with him, drinks his scotch, begs for a cigarette, and when she tries to get the action started by pressing his hand against her breast, Barney freezes.

A creature of habit, Barney nearly whispers. The walls are paper thing and the woman next door hears everything. Elaine only talks louder. It’s one hysterical Neil Simon line after another while Moore and Hite absorb the lines into their characters.

Nervous about getting out on time, fumbling over himself all the way, Elaine finally leaves in a huff with Barney declaring, “I will never do that again.”

Barney, however, still hasn’t achieved his goal, and he certainly doesn’t want to miss out on the sexual revolution. The following August on a hot afternoon he again sneaks into his mother’s apartment, again with a little brown bag with two glasses, a bottle of scotch, a bottle of vodka, and several packs of cigarettes, just in case. Stumbling through his nervousness, Barney shows slight improvement with a tethered confident air.

This time he has invited Bobbi Michelle, an unemployed hippy-styled, pot smoking nightclub singer who flirts with psychotic neurosis, talking endlessly, flitting from one subject to another with barely a comma in between, changing moods as fast as it would take to insert a comma, and keeping Barney totally rattled. He doesn’t know whether to laugh at her, with her, or run. Vanessa Bowie magnificently slips into Bobbi’s fractured personality with coiffed artistic talent keeping Barney on his stumbling toes.

Yes, of course, she wants a drink, but has brought her own wrapped in a brown paper bag that she digs out of a very large carpetbag that she undoubtedly calls a purse. Yes, she wants a cigarette, but not what Barney has to offer. Nearly choking when he recognizes weed, you can almost hear his brains rattle worrying about the smell. When she forces him to smoke with her, the antics are almost too much to sit still over. By the end of Act II, the two are feeling no pain singing at the top of their lungs the music of the 70s, riding high on the wings of the sexual revolution. Barney rides so high he says, “I can hear my eyelids blinking.”

Barney still hasn’t accomplished his goal. In September, he enters the apartment full of vim and “vinegared” confidence, this time he’s got it whipped. He knows exactly what to do and when. Hold onto your seats. The laughability radar only thinks it has evened out. The ribs certainly want a break, figuratively speaking. When he opens the apartment door, there stands frozen in the spot Jeanette Fisher. Somewhere under the babushka scarf clutching a small brown purse in matronly clothes is Paige L. Larson. Larson knows comedy. Larson knows timing, Larson knows how to own a character, but this has to be one of the most absolute, honest funniest roles she has ever taken on.

Jeannette is Barney’s wife best friend. The two couples just had dinner together a few nights before, and evidently Jeannette lost her inhibition chasing Barney all over the house. Now she’s in a perpetual frozen state unable to let go of her little brown purse driving Barney up a tree and down again. Barney on the other hand thinks heÕs a pro and knows the ropes. “If we’re guilty,” he tells the frozen ice cube Jeannette, “then let’s commit the crime.”

Simon is a master of sharp double-edged sassy humor. Prolific as he is, delving into uncanny human situations, he can be mutilated by actors leaning too heavily into the funny lines holding them up for all to see. Not this cast. These four highly talented actors dive head first into the laps of their characters making those very funny lines appear as though everyone talks like that every day of the week, which by the way, makes the lines even funnier, the characters hysterical because of the nonsensical situation they allowed themselves to get into and the cast masters of their craft.

With Barney’s madcap determination to seduce three unlikely candidates attired in his ineptness is a good three act laugh out loud comedic experience, and a rich opportunity to observe four outstanding actors apply their craft with hilarious ease. Barney’s ineptness melts away during the last few moments when a revelation tickles his brain, coxing him to act on it.

Resident lighting designer, Karolyn Pytel set the varied moods with her innate sense of color, hue, and brightness. Ann Piano designed the costumes fitting everyone to a “T.” She had to be giggling all the way from the Salvation Army store after she outfitted Jeannette.

Run, don’t walk to the nearest phone and get those reservations now. This is one production no one should miss for a laugh out loud howling good time.