The Prisoner Of Second Avenue

 Camelot Artists is the non-profit producing theatre company of the Beverley Hills Playhouse. The Playhouse is the home of one of the oldest and prestigious acting schools in Los Angeles. According to their stated artistic values Camelot Artists goal is to provide theatre that entertains, provokes, and illuminates, presented by artists who risk boldly. Often the selection of plays comes from within the workshop.

     The current offering being presented is Neil Simon’s THE PRISONER OF SECOND AVENUE. Perhaps the play hasn’t been presented in Los Angeles in awhile but it hardly fits the stated mandate of the theatre outside of it being entertaining. The acting for the most part is well done. Steve Blackwood stars as Mel who in the course of the play has a nervous breakdown. His wife is played by Lisa Pescia  his long-suffering wife who eventually succumbs to her own breakdown. New York City is also a leading character and it’s aggressively trying to undo the couple. Steve Blackwood does a nice job of modulating his decline. Lisa Pescia is less successful but perhaps has the more difficult part because her decline is abrupt. It’s hard to sympathize with her patience when all Mel does is whine.

     The couple is not helped by the intrusion of the family excellently played by Veronica Alicina, Sheila Shaw, Robert Trebor, and Irene Roseen. Ms Rossen is especially effective due to her baritone voice and excellent comic timing.

     Where the production really falls apart is in the set department. J.Kent Inasy, who usually does fine work, is here listed as the designer. The set looks like it never left the rehearsal room. There were also huge problems with the props. The play tales place in the seventies in New York City. A newspaper plays an important role but it was the Los Angeles Times with the Calendar Section featured prominently. On stage there is also a coffee maker that wasn’t invented till much later. What was needed was an electric coffee pot. THE most egregious example slackness in detail was supposed to be the single biggest laugh in the show. In the original New York production the moment, when Mel is doused with water from the upstairs neighbors as he is screaming at them, brought down the house. In the current production there was only a little water and you could see the arm of the person dumping the water,. The moment only got a titter. A company that wants to be considered world class  cannot afford such Sloppy mistakes.

BEVERLEY HILLS PLAYHOUSE   254 S. Robertson Blvd.  Beverley Hills 310 358 9936 until Dec 1