THE SUNSHINE BOYS

Background Notes

by Soulpepper Associate Artist Toby Malone

Neil Simon is arguably the most prolific of all American comic playwrights. Simon's success might be traced directly to his mastery of the cutting one-liner, but more specifically it is his placement of those lines into recognisable, human situations familiar to an audience that give them life. Anyone who has known the pain of unrequited love (Brighton Beach Memoirs), or an unsuitable roommate (The Odd Couple), or a strained marriage (Plaza Suite), or a disastrous dinner party (Rumors), can identify with Simon. The Sunshine Boys is no exception, as it plays on the very human reaction to a sense of obsolescence as the world begins to pass one by. In one critic's words, "Simon's ability to stand outside himself and to observe the folly of Homo sapiens is both his honey and his cross: instead of working through the emotion... he deflects it with laughs." The Sunshine Boys is both savagely funny and quietly heartbreaking, dealing with the eclipse of once-storied careers. Simon's masterstroke is to not only focus on the private lives of a popular pair of entertainers, but to examine those lives a decade after their last glimpse of relevance. The faded spark of Al Lewis and Willy Clark's vaudeville career - a field that has been surpassed by the predominance of television - means that there is little left but the pair's disdain for one another. An offer to reunite cuts through the uninspiring potato chip commercial auditions but hinges on the possibility of getting two irascible comedy veterans in a room together, and to pander to the very medium that overshadowed theirs. Bringing this touching but irreverent story to life are Canadian acting legends Kenneth Welsh and Eric Peterson, in roles made famous by Jack Albertson and Sam Levene, and which later helped revive the film career of George Burns, alongside Walter Matthau.