Neil Simon is one of America’s greatest playwrights, and for the The Adelaide Repertory Theatre’s final production of 2022, they will be presenting one of Simon’s most famous comedy plays, Laughter On The 23rd Floor.
It’s the early years of television in 1953, and the comic writers of The Max Prince Show in New York write Max an hour-and-a-half-long sketch show that is broadcast live every week! Laughter on the 23rd Floor is a roman à clef, as Neil Simon was just such a writer for Sid Caesar, the real-life show host on which Max Prince is based. While we enjoy the witty banter of the comedians, Max is fighting an epic battle with his network bosses. Television is coming of age and will expand broadcasting far beyond New York – the executives don’t think the audiences in Ohio and Kentucky will get the Shakespeare jokes, and the writers are anxious about their jobs.
Director David Grybowski is no stranger to this play, or to the works of Neil Simon. With the play set to open this week, I was fortunate to have a chance to speak to David to discuss the production and what drew him to Laughter On The 23rd Floor in the first place.
“I was cast in the show in 2003 when St Jude’s Players produced the show and I thought it was a cracker of a play. Every character in it is a comic writer, so they are constantly telling each other jokes, or trying material out and behind that is a little bit more serious and historical about television. Because of the issues with television, the comedy turns into a real sense of change and unease about the future. It kind of gets turned on its head and you fall in love with these characters and really empathise with them when things go wrong.”
Neil Simon was such an exceptional playwright. Over the past few years, David’s own acting career has crossed paths with Neil’s works. David discussed with me what it is about Neil’s works that he loves.
“Being brought up Canadian, which is awfully too close to America, you got a lot of their culture that oozes across the border. I get the jokes, but in Canada we didn’t really have that much British humour, it was a lot more American humour, especially on television. I get his comedy, even more so now after doing research for this play on how it’s contextualised and it is providing a very rich experience that we hope the audience will understand. We’ve gone to some extraordinary lengths to contextualise the information in the play. The gags, the quick one-liners all have a familiar ring to me, especially the crossover of radio to television. When I was a kid in Canada, and even today when I visit in the summers, I hear on CBC that there is a lot of comedy on the radio. They do lots of fantastic shows on the radio, not only spoof news and current event shows, but also plays.”
For this production, David has assembled an exceptional cast who have taken on board every one of David’s crazy ideas while rehearsing Laughter On The 23rd Floor.
“I presented the play to The REP in 2020 for their 2021 season, but due to COVID the season was cancelled. So I’ve had a long time to think about it, but also being the last play in the year it has given me that bit of extra time to prepare. I have had a lot of time to imagine how the play will go, but you don’t think of everything – I’ve had a lot of broad ideas. Once we were blocking the show in the rehearsal room, I just loved the creative process with this cast. I loved dreaming up with the cast of all the physical business we needed. Basically any play is a radio script, so you have to physicalise it. There is so much rich content in the script, and I had so much fun trialing different approaches to delivering the humour. The cast have gone along magnificently with some of my random ways of approaching the humour. About two weeks ago I had this feeling that my job as the director was slipping away from me and the cast had taken all of my ideas and workshopping had made it their own. They are a great group to work with and it’s been wonderful releasing with them. I have loved the process.”
David promises that audiences will get immersed in this production.
“I have taken great efforts to contextualise the historical elements that Neil Simon has replicated in the script as well as giving people a different kind of theatre experience. The action of the play takes place in a particular time of television where, up to that time, television had really only been broadcast to certain parts of America. Up until this time, the popular stuff on television was dominated by Jewish talent, but the advertisers didn’t want that as they were concerned the humour wouldn’t relate across America. So that is the narrative, the dramatic drive of this play. Before the show starts, we will be showing outtakes from shows from the era as well as television commercials in the foyer and the theatre. We also will have some comics doing pre-show material. The concept is that we want it to be like a live television show audience, so there is an immersive experience for the audience. It is going to be a great night out at the theatre.”
Laughter On The 23rd Floor opens at The Arts Theatre, 53 Angas Street, Adelaide this Thursday and runs 17-19 & 23-26 November 2022. All performances commence at 7:30pm plus a 2pm matinee Saturday 26 November 2022. Tickets can be purchased through adelaiderep.com .
Interviewed by: Ben Stefanoff
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