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"Sunshine" is a Challenging Theatrical Gift!

Neil Simon drew from two different Vaudeville teams in creating the characters of Al Lewis and Willie Clark in The Sunshine Boys.  One team was that of Smith and Dale.  While the fictitious Lewis and Clark were together for over 40 years, Joe Smith and Charlie Dale worked together for over 70 years.  Their most popular routine was “Dr. Kronkheit and his only living patient”, which may also be the inspiration for the “Doctor” routine in this play.  The similarity ends with the fact that Smith and Dale were the closest of friends their entire lives.

The other actual Vaudeville team was Gallagher and Shean.  First teaming up in 1912, Edward Gallagher and Al Shean would split in two years because of their quarrelling.  It was Al’s sister, Minnie Marx (mother of the Marx Brothers), who reunited Gallagher and Shean in 1920.  This led to their greatest success in 1922 when their theme song, “Mister Gallagher and Mister Shean” became a hit in the Ziegfeld Follies.  But once again animosity won out and the two separated for good in 1925.

Line for line, The Sunshine Boys is perhaps one of Neil Simon’s funniest plays.  This fact alone would make it worth seeing, but Simon has given the theatre an added gift in this script.  The characters of Al Lewis and Willie Clark are a special challenge for the two actors who are willing to take up the gauntlet that has been laid before them.

Written into these two characters is a wonderful contrast in personality.  Willie is loud, hostile and has a short fuse while Al is more reserved and comes across as the rational one of the two.  But Lewis knows full well just how to light Clark’s fuse and make himself look better in the process.  They are the ying and yang, the polar opposites that complete each other and, in doing so, make each other greater than they could ever be on their own.

This is the challenge that Neil Simon has given to those actors who are willing and capable of not just going for the laughs, but capturing the nuance of these two personalities.  If the actors can deliver on this challenge, just like Al and Willie, they present to the audience a performance greater than they could otherwise do alone.

We invite you to join us at the Grand Trunk Theatre and see how well we deliver on this challenge.  We trust that you will leave feeling that you received the gift that Neil Simon gave us in The Sunshine Boys.