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Sunshine Boys (long)

Posted by:	Whistler 12:54 am EDT 10/14/13

The Danny DeVito/Judd Hirsch production is lovely, though I'm not sure "lovely" is an adjective you expect to describe a Neil Simon comedy. For me, this production mainly brings to mind other combinations of actors playing Al and Willie. When both characters are played as cartoons, I suspect the production could have a kind of manic energy, but I've never seen it played that way. I wonder if that's the way it was with DeVito and Richard Griffiths. He could certainly play a cartoon, as he did with Uncle Dudley. In the Broadway original, Albertson as Willie seemed more grounded than Levene as Al, though here, Hirsch as Al is more grounded than DeVito as Willie. The movie seemed an imbalance to me because Matthau was acting and Burns just was, and he walked off with the film. And I never saw Allen/Falk or Klugman/Randall versions. But it was good to see DeVito and Hirsch on stage, and they seemed to be having as much fun as the audience. At the curtain call, the audience was clapping in time with the music. (Also on East Coast postings)

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