Downriver’s `Red Hot Lovers’ is a winner

Machias’ Downriver Theatre Company can never be accused of failing to venture into unchartered waters. “Last of the Red Hot Lovers,” a three-act, Neil Simon comedy, which opened Tuesday, is a case in point.

While it might be safer to stick with previously successful, tried and proven formulas, Downriver has shown it is willing to take a risk.

“Last of the Red Hot Lovers,” the theater’s fourth and final production of the 1993 summer season, is also the company’s first non-musical staging in its five-year history. And it’s a winner.

Barney Cashman (David Whitney) is a nerdish restaurateur, who, married more than 20 years to the same woman and fast-approaching middle age, begins looking for love in all the wrong places.

He makes a clumsy first effort with the straight-shooting, hot-to-trot Elaine Navazio (Leta Myers), a customer in Barney’s seafood restaurant. Elaine, is married, but experienced.

Barney, however, runs around his mother’s apartment in a state of nervous anxiety, chattering non-stop like a schoolboy confronted with his first kiss. With their allotted time up, Elaine leaves, bored and unfulfilled, but not before leaving her mark on the audience.

By play’s end, Barney undergoes a complete metamorphosis, from being a shy, klutzy nerd in Act I to a seemingly “with it” kind of guy in Act III. He ditches his staid, conservative blue suit for a wildly plaid jacket in Act II. By Act III he’s gone disco.

However, the women he conspires to have affairs with regress in a way that reflects where Barney has been, not where he’d like to go.

He moves from the earthy Elaine to Bobbi Michele (Donna Dray-Preston), an air-headed cross between a ’60s hippy and an ’80s Valley girl. Barney loans her $20 and hopes to “collect,” but Bobbi simply wants to get stoned.

Finally, there’s Jeanette Fisher (Hedy Whitney Ardito), a Plain-Jane family friend, whose husband has been cheating on her for eight months. Jeanette tells Barney that she’s been happy for only 8.2 percent of her life. She pops pills, like they’re candy, for her depression.

Yet, like the Act I version of Barney, Jeanette is in foreign turf. The two have more in common than they might think, and it’s through Jeanette that “Last of the Red Hot Lovers” comes full circle and Barney finds himself for the first time.

Without benefit song, dance or music, “Last of the Red Hot Lovers” relies solely on dialogue and the abilities of its actors to keep the play moving. David Whitney of Machias excels as Barney who, in reality, is a trio of roles as his character emerges differently in each act.

Myers, Dray-Preston and Ardito were flawless in their roles as Elaine, Bobbi and Jeanette, respectively. The dialogue and action flowed smoothly and naturally. The chemistry between the four cast members, simply put, works.

“Last of the Red Hot Lovers” continues at 8 p.m. Aug. 13 and 14, and Aug. 17-21, at the Downriver Theatre Company playhouse in Gay’s Wreath Shop, Marshfield Ridge Road, Machias. For tickets, call 255-4997.