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Award-winning playwright Neil Simon’s “Plaza Suite” is actually three mini-plays all set in the same suite of New York City’s Plaza Hotel in 1968. The six actors who play three different couples are well directed by James Rice to deliver Simon’s sharp and witty lines in laugh-out-loud ways — making for charmingly entertaining theater.
The hotel suite itself plays a role in each story, composed of a nicely appointed sitting room and separate bedroom, well designed by Greg Fritsche and Donna Fritsche to cover most of the Playhouse’s thrust stage, surrounded by the audience on three sides. Christina Bayer’s 1960s-style costuming immerses us further into the time and place of the stories.
In the first, Lisa J. Salas plays Karen Nash, a wife keen on reigniting a spark with her husband Sam (Todd Rew, well cast) on their anniversary. She arrives early, unpacks a negligee and orders champagne for the room. He arrives with a briefcase full of contracts to review for his high-powered job.
Sam attempts to work while Karen encourages him to take a day off to celebrate, though he says the anniversary is actually tomorrow and she has no head for numbers. As Karen subtly chases Sam around the suite trying to convince him, she counters everything he says with a droll response, making us laugh and also sympathize with her. Whether he gives in or not depends on something else entirely.
In the second play, Ryabrae Ngaida is absolutely delightful as flighty New Jersey mom Muriel Tate, arriving at the suite to meet Jesse Kiplinger (Charlie Rodriguez), whom she dated in high school and is now a famous movie producer.
As Jesse makes moves on her, Muriel variously protests that she can only stay a short time, that she must leave before her husband Larry gets home, that she shouldn’t have another drink — and then invariably does, and stays. Only all she wants to talk about is everything she’s gleaned from gossip columns about Jesse and the Hollywood stars he works with.
The actors in both skits look great in their period costuming — from Sam’s suit to Jesse’s turtleneck and bellbottoms to the women’s dresses. As directed by Rice, they also move about the suite naturally and fluidly. The space feels just confining enough to create tension in that there’s nowhere to go besides the sitting room or bedroom.
The bathroom of the suite figures prominently in the third play — or at least its door. Behind it, the daughter of Norma (Jessica Plotin) and Roy Hubley (Lee Samuel Tanng) has locked herself away, refusing to go downstairs to get married, despite her parents’ pleas.
Plotin and Tanng are hilarious in this crisis situation (both had been in the Playhouse’s “God’s Favorite” last spring, along with Rodriguez), playing up New York accents as their characters jibe at each other and try different tactics to get their daughter out, with Roy comically worried about how much it’s costing him to pay for the musicians and waiting guests’ drinks.
“Plaza Suite” is an overall immersive and entertaining set of plays that will keep a grin on your face, eager to see what happens. The audience becomes voyeurs to what’s going on privately in the suite in each of these well-drawn plays. One ends sort of sadly, one happily and one perhaps inevitably. It’ll be a pleasure for you to see which is which.
“Plaza Suite” continues through Nov. 29 at Long Beach Playhouse, 5021 E. Anaheim St., with shows Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. For tickets and information, call the box office at 562-494-1014 or visit LBPlayhouse.org.