"Jake’s Women" is Part Comedy, Part Therapy

In only its second year, Monarch Theatre Troupe has all the requirements for excellent local theater. Accomplished actors, check. Experienced director, check. Professional quality lighting and sound, check. Good venue, check. Work of a famous and talented playwright, check. His best work, hmm, perhaps not.

Billed as a comedy, one of Neil Simon’s lesser known works “Jake’s Women” is part comedy of errors – in that Jake, keenly portrayed by Tom Dinardo, manages to talk to imaginary playmates while real people are present – and part therapy session.

Mid-lifer Jake is in the midst of losing his second wife, while preoccupied with his first wife, Julie, who died young in a car crash.  Julie’s memory is played blithely by Annie Jackson.

It’s hard to compete with a ghost, and Jake’s present wife, Maggie, played by Laura Scotti, shows the wear of such an unfair fight.  Scotti’s Maggie exudes exhaustion in the first act when she asks for a separation after admitting to an affair.

During the second act, after six months away from Jake’s arduous mid-life crisis – he had his own affair earlier and doesn’t waste time getting back in the dating scene – Maggie reappears refreshed, renewed.

Jake’s daughter, Molly, played at her present-day college age by Brianna June Tillo and as a child by Elaina Faust (On opening night, the exquisitely endearing Isabella Scotti stood in for Faust.), appear in Jake’s daydreams to bring poignancy to his dilemma. Both Young and Older Molly make the connection between the ugliness of a marriage in turmoil and the love of family in all its forms.

Providing the comedy are Jake’s sister, Karen, played by the versatile Bonnie Kapenstein, and his therapist, Edith, played with spot-on comic timing by Fran Kane. Barbara Kind Berman, as Jake’s date Sheila, has an over-the-top funny scene with Jake during the second act in which the imaginary Maggie “helps” Jake break up with poor Sheila by letting her see exactly how crazy he is.

Dinardo deftly carries the weight of the piece on his back, and it is weighty. Laden with monologues, burdened by ringing phones and doorbells, Dinardo sails through, never flinching under the strain of Simon’s somewhat overwrought angst. The man earns a cold beer - with the guys. Probably something that wouldn’t have hurt Simon now and then.

“Jake’s Women” plays April 14, 15 and 16 at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, April 16 at 2 p.m. at Rolling Hills Elementary School, Middle Holland Road, Holland. Admission is $12.50 and tickets are available at the door.  Visit www.monarchtheatre.org.