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| Jason Isaak, Tom Koelbel, and Marney Austin Photo by Bill Phillips |
highlights from local critics reviews - (click link at bottom of each review to read complete review)
Click here for more information on this production that runs through September 2nd.
"...Neil Simon's Rose and Walsh, his last produced play... focuses on two writers who suffer hindrances, including blindness and death, in completing their latest works. Unfortunately, Simon's play also suffers from shortcomings and obstacles in an unfocused plot and is never truly successful. But even a less effective Simon play with some deficiencies still has some redeeming qualities, as does Theater Artists Studio's respectable production....Simon's plot is all over the place. It starts to go in one direction, shifts gears, turns from comical to sad, and leaves many intriguing plot points unresolved....It could have been an intriguing drama about a woman coming to the realization that it's finally time to let go of her past and her ties to her deceased lover and how she spends her last two weeks with him, or even a comedy about a woman and her ghostly lover employing a "ghost" writer to help finish a novel. Or, it could have been a poignant drama that focuses on the strains that art and the drive for success and the choices one makes, good or bad, put on familial relations. Simon brings all of these elements into his piece yet just as soon as you think the piece is going in one direction, it abruptly shifts gears into another and leaves all of these potential plots unfinished. ...Fortunately, the piece does include interesting characters, some funny lines, and a truly hilarious sequence..a throwback to some of Simon's well composed earlier comedies...Theatre Artists Studio's cast is fine under Deborah Lee Hall's direction...Rose and Walsh starts out as a comical ghost story but tries to also be a poignant drama of ageism and the strain that the drive for success takes on relationships. Theatre Artists Studio's production is successful in navigating through these changes in tone and plot but, unfortunately, Simon's shifts are too abrupt and too many plot devices are left unfinished to be a truly successful comedy. " -Gil Benbrook, Talkin' Broadway (click here to read the complete review)
"ROSE AND WALSH is the last play written by Neil Simon...a simmering but unsteady and almost trite rumination on love and loss and legacy. Last, but not the best in a long line of semi-autobiographical works that parallel Simon's stages of life....wades in shallow waters, uplifted only by periodic flashes of Simonesque one-liner brilliance ...In its current staging, Theatre Artists Studio's season opener, directed by Deborah Lee Hall, the potential I referred to earlier is unfulfilled....How do you let go of the one you love? How do you let go of the memory? How do you survive? There's enough here, in these questions, to produce a memorable balance of belly laughs and tears. That is, as long as the chemistry between the characters is convincing and the story line demonstrates clarity of direction. Alas, the script is tired and tiresome. The director's pacing of the play does not help, weighed down further by too much gravity in the featured performances...." - Herbert Paine, Broadway World (click here to read the complete review)
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