The Prisoner of Second Avenue

Mel Edison is a middle-aged, middle-class advertising account executive and he is having a very bad time. His employer is on the verge of bankruptcy. His 14^th floor apartment is cracking and he can’t sleep because the air conditioning is faulty. Through the paper thin walls he can hear his neighbours' romantic encounters and he can’t open the windows without being overwhelmed by the noise and smell of downtown Manhattan.

When Mel loses his job and gets robbed in the same week he loses his ability to cope and becomes a prisoner in his Second Avenue apartment, pacing the walls in his pyjamas and listening to talk back radio for hours on end. He believes that there is a conspiracy afoot, “The deterioration of the spirit of Man. Man undermining himself, causing a self-willed, self-imposed, self-evident self-destruction!”. 

Written in 1971, Neil Simon’s play The Prisoner of Second Avenue still resonates strongly today. Earlier this year the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released a report entitled Under Pressure: The Squeezed Middle Class, which, oddly, could be a suitable alternate title for this play.

You could be forgiven for thinking that this play sounds rather more like a tragedy than a comedy but that is not the case. Neil Simon’s script is peppered with witty dialogue and one-liners.  Andrew Clark gets the lion’s share of the droll zingers and really makes a meal of his role as Mel Edison. 

As his wife Edna, Sharon Malujlo has less to work with in the script but is superb as we watch her try to care for her husband through his crisis, only to slowly descend into her own.

The second act introduces us to Mel’s four siblings who have arrived at the apartment to commiserate his state of mental health and offer support to Edna, from whom they have been estranged for many years. It seems a slightly odd moment to introduce the new characters to the piece.

Nonetheless veteran actor Harry Dewar as brother Harry and Ashleigh Merriel, Anita Canala and Leanne Robinson as the sisters offer some very funny moments as they grapple with their differing childhood memories and their desire to be seen to 'do the right thing'.

Trisha Graham has designed both the set and costumes to be true to the 1971 origin of the play. She has created a very workable space for the action, complete with balcony and views of New York, with scenic painting by Brittany Daw. The furnishings and dressings are superb examples of 1970s kitsch, even down to the small details of the coffee pot and other tableware.

Luke Budgen has lit the action well, with the exception of some awkward shadows on the New York streetscape and some poorly placed bright lights in the eyeline of the raked seating.

Director Kym Clayton has carefully selected some popular music from the period to segue between scenes and acts, as well as pre-recorded 'news' segments which he voiced, along with Luke Budgen, Bronwyn Ruciak, Lindsay Dunn and Maxine Grubel.

Clayton and the Galleon team give a highly polished and entertaining night out with this Neil Simon classic.

In some ways the ending Simon wrote for The Prisoner of Second Avenue feels a little inconclusive, but that leaves us to imagine where Mel and Edna’s life took them next, and to hope for the best for them.  Go and see the play to decide for yourself where life may lead them…

Jenny Fewster