Theatre
California Suite
MADC Club Rooms, Santa Venera

In a double director production by MADC at their Club Rooms in Santa Venera, Justin Kyle Camilleri and Joe Depasquale take on Neil Simon’s 1976 comedy California Suite – in which four scenes see various characters grappling with their personal lives in one of Sunset Boulevard’s swankiest hotel suites.

It is very much in the vein of a fly-on-the-wall overview of what goes on behind the closed doors of a private, yet impersonal place.

Camilleri directed the first and third scenes – ‘Visitor from New York’, featuring Maria Pia Meli as Hannah Warren, a workaholic New Yorker, who is attracted to intellectualism and not appearances and Stefan Cachia Zammit as William Warren, her ex-husband and successful screenwriter, whose lifestyle changes since his move to California surprise her.  And ‘Visitors from London’, where British actress Diana Nichols (Taryn Mamo Cefai) and her husband Sidney Nichols (Jovan Pisani) are getting ready to go to the Academy Awards.

Meli’s Hannah was coy and patronising towards Cachia Zammit’s Warren, but her delivery was rather static and lacked the sharp acerbic sarcasm that her character needed, leaving Cachia Zammit to grab onto his cues and deliver his lines with a tenacity that lacked focus. Simon’s script is certainly funny, but required more chemistry for the dry humour to work effectively.

Simon’s script is certainly funny, but required more chemistry for the dry humour to work effectively

Mamo Cefai gave a solid performance as Diana Nichols – who frets and complains about the entire charade of going to the Oscars in the hope that her career will get the boost she so desperately needs, while knowing that she stands no chance of winning her nomination. All this in the knowledge that her marriage is a bit of a sham as her once-closeted husband isn’t keeping his interests to himself any longer. Pisani threw away several of his lines as Sidney due to a lack of clarity in his delivery and consequently slowed down the pace of the comedy.

The second and fourth scenes were directed by Depasquale, where ‘Visitor from Philadelphia’ saw an anxious Marvin Michaels (Edward Caruana Galizia) trying desperately to get out of an impossible situation when he wakes up next to comatose prostitute Bunny (Nicole Galea) as he learns that his wife Millie (Christine Borg) is about to arrive. Once she does, hilarity ensues. Visitors from Chicago sees two couples – friends who have gone on holiday together, having a very heated fight and coming to blows following a savage match of tennis doubles. Mort Hollander (Edward Caruana Galizia) and his wife Beth (Christine Borg), play against Stu Franklyn (Jovan Pisani) and his wife Gert (Taryn Mamo Cefai), resulting in Beth getting injured and Mort taking offence at Frank and Gert’s dirty playing.

Maria Pia Meli and Stefan Cachia Zammit in ‘Visitor from New York’ from California Suite.

Caruana Galizia and Borg nailed their nasal American accents in both scenes, and their comic timing and sharp witty delivery had the audience in fits. Mamo Cefai gave as good as she got in the fourth scene, as did Pisani, whose escalating fight sequence with Caruana Galizia was very well choreographed and delightfully funny to watch.

Marco Mallia’s excellent set design lent itself to all four very different scenarios and was the final character in the comedy – the suite itself – host to so many lives and stories. While some of the casting was stronger than others, the production is worth a watch if a light, relaxed evening is what you need at the end of a long week.

California Suite is being staged at MADC Club Rooms, Sta Venera, today, tomorrow and on Sunday at 7.30pm.