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Play still resonates, despite details

Barefoot in the Park's timeless mix of relationship difficulties and odd attractions keeps drawing audiences. Never mind the Princess phone.

LARGO - Don't look for Corie Bratter to do anything like wear her husband's dress shirt and nothing else in the Neil Simon comedy Barefoot in the Park, on stage through Sunday at Largo Cultural Center's Eight O'Clock Theatre.

Jane Fonda played the lead opposite Robert Redford in the 1967 feature film and struck an unforgettable pose as she bid her lawyer husband a public goodbye at their honeymoon spot, New York's Plaza Hotel.

Blatant sexuality aside, the audience also never knows if Corie Bratter went to college, plans a career or has any desires other than to be a perfect wife and please her husband.

But one word still endears Barefoot in the Park after all these years to theater audiences: relationships. The play portrays universal relationships involving newlyweds, mothers and daughters and senior couples.

"It's still about the romanticism of wanting those relationships all to work out and of course, not to forget, it is Neil Simon and is inherently funny in his wide perspective on it," said Pat Clark, director of the Eight O'Clock Theatre production, her third show at the Largo Cultural Center.

Audience members warmed to Clark's cast at the matinee on Monday. Red Hat Society women, older couples and young students nearly filled the cultural center.

The notion that opposites attract, another universal theme, defines the play's premise. Petite, blond Jayme Huckle plays energetic free spirit Corie Bratter. Scott Hamilton, who appeared in Footloose at the theater, plays conservative lawyer Paul Bratter. How the couple met or became engaged remains a mystery.

A sixth-floor walkup studio apartment sets the scene as Corie waits for her new furniture and her husband to arrive home. Touching and kissing stand in for hot newlywed sex.

"She's a stay-at-home wife whose sole purpose is to have everything perfect when her husband gets home," Clark said. "She lives to basically please her man. I don't think that's as contemporary as it was in the 60s."

However, Clark has seen theaters fail when directors tried to update the show's marital relationship and props, including the Princess-style telephone equipped with a long cord. Breathlessly navigating six flights of stairs prompted audience laughs for Paul, Corie's mother Ethel Banks (Ronnie Farley) and eccentric neighbor Victor Velasco (Bill Harber). Harber is a veteran of Dunedin's West Coast Players. Dennis Winchester as telephone man Harry Pepper and Andy Rufo, who plays a deliveryman with a mountain of wedding gifts, round out the cast.

The stair gag resonated with Monique Warner, 14, who attended the Monday matinee with her mother, Angela Warner. A freshman in the Gibbs High School visual arts program, Monique is required to attend performing arts programs.

"It's fun," she said of the play. "I walk up at least four flights of stairs everyday to get to one of my classes."

Clark, who is also director of the medical library and education services at All Children's Hospital, compares other comedies, including Simon's The Odd Couple and recent television sitcom Dharma and Greg, to Barefoot in the Park.

"If I were to try to pick out a current Barefoot in the Park it would be Dharma and Greg," Clark said. "They come from such different backgrounds."

Barefoot in the Park debuted on Broadway in 1963 with Elizabeth Ashley playing opposite Redford. The director at the time was Mike Nichols, 2004 Emmy Award winner for directing the HBO AIDS drama Angels in America.

Joy Roche, drama teacher at Clearwater High School for the past 16 years, hasn't directed Barefoot in the Park but said the "opposites attract" element appeals to students.

"It's the opposite personalities and the fact that opposites still attract, whether it's the 60s or the millennium," Roche said.

She applauds Neil Simon's material.

"Sometimes we do censoring to make sure it's appropriate for students, but he's by far the best comedic writer that exists," she said.

Eight O'Clock Theatre presents Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park through Sunday at the Largo Cultural Center, 105 Central Park Drive. Curtain goes up at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday with a Sunday matinee at 2 p.m. For information and tickets, call (727) 587-6793.