Hilbarn's Cast is wonderful, but the star of 'Rumors' is Neil Simon's great writing
By Keith Kreitman, San Mateo County Times Contributor

Take a play by a contemporary comic genius, give direction to a premier Bay Area talent such as Toni Tomei, have Lee Basham design a beautiful, Broadway-stage-worthy set of an affluent New York City living room, populate it with prime actors, and you have Hillbarn Theatre's super production of Neil Simon's "Rumors."

And, it is nigh-on perfect, with a remarkably balanced cast of local talent.  This shouldn't be surprising, since Hillbarn Theatre in Foster City has been upping the quality of its productions for a number of years and is among the best community theatres in the Bay Area.

Simon has shown his brilliance for comedy for more than 50 years in TV, theater and movies.  He has a gift for taking commonplace comments, objects, events and relationships and spinning them into rib-cracking humor.

A master of one-liners, he most recently has used them as a basis for more serious social comment.

"Rumors," a 1988 farce, is a commentary on the absurdities of urban affluent professionals who aren't sophisticated, nor are they secure in being members of high society.  Let them face unaccustomed social pressures, and they peel down to their neurotic, insecure selves; that's the foundation of the humor in this play.

Four formally dressed couples are invited to an anniversary party for the deputy mayor of New York and his wife.

They are: excitable lawyer Ken Gorman (Bill Davidovich) and his cigarette-withdrawal-suffering lawyer wife Chris (Mary Moore); hyper-accountant Lenny Ganz (Rich Dymer) and his wife Claire (Laura Jane Coles); clueless psychological analyst Ernie Cusack and his back-pain suffering TV cook-show host, Cookie (Zoe Conner); and the ambitious politician Glenn Cooper (Craig Lewis) and his sexy but suspicious wife Cassie (Michelle Robinson.)

Each couple arrives separately to discover the host is in bed upstairs shot through the ear.  The hostess is nowhere to be found and the cook is missing, so there is no food.

Panicked by the potential backlash of this embarrassing situation, neuroses run wild as the guests fall into a pattern of much lying and cover-ups; the mind reels trying to remember who is who and what is what, until all is brought to a head by the arrival of police officer Welch (Don DeMico) and his partner Officer Pudney (Ruth Sieber), who are simply investigating an accident that one of the groups had on its way to the party.

The actors all are top-notch, but the real stars of the show are Simon's lines.  Who else could have thought up such absurdities as Chris getting so nervous that when she can't find a cigarette, she goes into the bathroom and tries to light up a Q-Tip?

Or the officer being told that the host would not likely return soon because he was walking his Dachshund - and such dogs have very short legs.

Simply because Simon gave them the choice sequences, Conner's physical humor while nursing her bad back and Dymer's long imaginative story to the police officer of what had transpired steal the show.

With such a great set, perceptive direction and excellent actors, I cannot believe that the original Broadway staging could have been much better.

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