Muristek
Plaza Suite review – Sarah Jessica Parker sells Neil Simon’s marriage comedy
Hudson Theatre, New York
Sex and the City star plays well opposite her husband Matthew Broderick in an overlong triptych of bitter relationship tales
A junior suite at the Plaza Hotel will run you about $1,400 a night. Which makes the $599 that you will spend on an orchestra seat for the Broadway revival of Plaza Suite almost a bargain. Then again, Broadway doesn’t yet include butler service. Or a minibar on the aisle.
Plaza Suite, a trio of loosely affiliated one-acts by Neil Simon, opened on Valentine’s Day in 1968, which is funny when you think about it. Simon was, back then, Broadway’s premiere chuckle purveyor, so the show was initially received as a comedy. “Neil Simon clearly believes a play is a machine for laughing at,” the New York Times review read. But as critics would later realize and as this current revival, a vanity effort starring Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, demonstrates in full, the evening smuggles in bitter underneath the sweet, like a plate of cream puffs laced with cyanide.
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