Walnut Street Theatre presents Neil Simon's 'Last of the Red Hot Lovers'

Neil Simon's phenomenal success is built on an adept ear for jokes, which he links together into things sometimes resembling stories, like the oft-produced The Odd Couple and Barefoot in the Park. He writes fast-paced banter that, when performed well, clatters along amusingly. Simon's seldom accused of insight into characters or human behavior, and successfully avoids saying much of substance.

Hoping for sex at mom's

Fran Prisco plays sad-sack Barney Cashman, a New Yawk restaurateur using his mother's apartment for afternoon rendezvous. Though happily married for 23 years, he yearns for sexual adventure. Karen Peakes brilliantly conjures all three of his dates, played by separate actresses in the original production and the 1972 film. Director Adam Immerwahr keeps the play firmly in 1969, particularly through Mark Mariani's vintage costumes and sound designer John Kolbinski's top-40 music choices. The trouble is, the play feels like Simon read half a Parade magazine article about that wacky sexual revolution and decided there might be a play in it.

Barney fumbles and bumbles amusingly as he arranges Mom's living room for his first assignation, bringing his own booze and glasses and even wrapping his rubbers (that he wears on his feet, of course — this is the tamest play about sex ever, so get your mind out of the gutter, or at least out of 2017) so that she'll never know he was there.

His first date, brash housewife Elaine, has done this before, and shocks Barney by uttering the word "screw" as foreplay. Simon pits Barney's nervousness against Elaine's readiness, and the hour-long first act spins its wheels. When Elaine finally admits, "To tell the truth, I'm a little bored," she's not alone. She finally leaves — and then returns, to repeat their struggle.

Next comes Bobbie, a self-described "goofy" blonde Barney picked up in a park. She smokes pot, bursts into song, and tells outlandish stories. His third attempt at extramarital nookie is with Jeannette, an uptight married family friend clutching her pocket book. Nothing works out for poor Barney, which is never in doubt.

Comic desperation

The script requires that Prisco play Barney with ever-increasing comic desperation and he succeeds, but it's all repetitive shtick. Peakes heroically resists stereotypes and homage; Bobbi feels written for Goldie Hawn or some other 1969 ditzy blonde, but Peakes, while playing her as outlandishly as she's written, makes her credible every second. Same with Elaine and Jeannette: each character's voice, physicality, and pace differs considerably but each is utterly convincing, and also very funny. To perform all three in one evening, with only a minute between scenes for the makeover from Bobbi to Jeannette, is quite an achievement. It's like Peakes is the star of some better play about three women. Oh, to see that play!

Last of the Red Hot Lovers is Barney's story, however, and both the man and his plight are shallow, predictable, and pathetic. Simon isn't concerned with his problems, and neither are we. His trademark punch lines, though, they go on and on, worn and tawdry after 48 years.