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One preferred Lutece.%u201dWhat Do You Say?Dinner Tuesday SaturdayBrunch All Day Sunday448 A tlantic A ve., B rooklyn, NY 11217 237-2271m ^ u i AShe Finds Gallery Players' Simon Better Than the Broadway VersionBY DOROTHY WHITMOREIt%u2019s a rare occasion in the life of a critic when an off-Broadway revival is better than the original play. However, this phenomenon occurs in the Park Slope Gallery Players%u2019 production of Neil Simon%u2019s %u201cChapter Two.%u201dThis is Simon%u2019s full-length tragi-comedy, an outgrowth of his experiment with this genre in %u201cPlaza Suite.%u201d It is also his %u201cproblem%u201d play as it juxtaposes stinging satire in one scene against tense psychological problems in another. Although this technique sustains the audience%u2019s interest, it is also disconcerting.Based upon Simon%u2019s own life, it relates the story of newly-widowed George Schneider (Roy Clary) and his brother, Leo%u2019s (Marshall Hambro) attempts to reawake his interest in women and get him dates. In this pursuit, Leo meets an old girlfriend, Faye, (Mary Rae) with a recently-divorced actress, Jenny Malone, (Paula Warden). Leo and Faye then conspire to have George and Jenny meet, and in the course of their conspiracy, they also get involved in an extra-marital affair.However, while Leo and Faye%u2019s lovelife is loaded with sharp satirical lines, such as %u201cThe trouble with marriage is that it%u2019s relentless, even in the Army, they gave you a two-week vacation,%u201d George and Jenny%u2019s probes deeper human dilemmas. The problem is grief. George%u2019s grief over his wife%u2019s death, and his unwillingness to surrender his relationship with her. Roy Clary gives a brilliant performance of a man trapped by these emotions, and, at the same time, falling in love again. In Act 2, scene 1, Clary reveals all the defense mechanisms of aman grappling with confusion, rejecting love, wallowing in memories, and striking out in resentment. This scene brought tearsto my eyes.Paula Warden is excellent also as Jenny. In a role of almost saintly sweetness, Warden injects a stubborn practicality. She is particularly efficacious in her quarrels with George, and in her conversations with Faye.Mary Rae%u2019s Faye is a conservative rebel. Garbed in gypsy-like costumes with Madonna hairbows, her Southern twang is the essence of exasperated frustration. Yearning for romance, she crashes into reality with highly amusing results. She confronts this reality in her affair with Leo. While Hambro%u2019s Leo is at first too low-keyed, his performance picks up momentum with each scene. At the end his delivery of such lines as %u201cMy regiment is being called up tomorrow,%u201d (when discovered in a passionate embrace) brought guffaws from the audience.Director Erica Brown deserves praise for a terrific production. The sets by Michael Daughtry are appropriate, and the costumes by Debra Jackson becoming, lighting by Terry Smith is simplistic, yet effective, as is the staging by Catherine Guiher.So go! You won%u2019t see a better %u201cChapter Two%u201d anywhere.CHAPTER TWO: Gallery Players ofPark Slope, performing at Berkeley Carroll St. School, 181 Lincoln Place,Fri.-Sat. at 8pm, Sun. at 3pm throughJune 15. |6, $5 for seniors and students;TDF. Tel., 638-5725.Regina Opera Company Offers a Memorable And Exciting Production of Puccini's 'Tosca'BY NINO PANTANOGiacomo Puccini%u2019s %u201cTosca%u201d has been shocking audiences since its premiere in 1900. The story, full of love, jealousy, political intrigue, and murder, was based on Sardous drama %u201cLa Tosca%u201d and Puccini%u2019s librettists, Giacosa and Illica, combined to immortalize this verismo masterpiece of the %u201cblood and guts%u201d school.The triangle that ignites the match to the gasoline involves Mario Cavarodossi, painter and Republican, Floria Tosca, famed actress of the day, and Baron Scarpia, the evil and sadistic chief of police whose prisoner Cavaradossi becomes.Cavaradossi%u2019s fiery and jealous lover, Tosca, petitions Scarpia for his release; Scarpia agrees and suggests that a %u201cmock%u201d execution can be arranged for a %u201cprice%u201d%u2014that price being that Tosca grant him her body. Tosca agrees, but seizing a knife on Scaipia%u2019s table, stabs him. The mock execution turns into a real one and the murder discovered, a distraught Tosca jumps to her death from the battlements of the Castel Sant, Angelo.Giacomo Puccini%u2019s score for this impassioned work is flawless. It consists of a tremendous outpouring of passionate melody and calls for verismo (realistic) singers of the old school. Ilona Simon dominated the evening as Tosca. She literally %u201ctore up the scenery%u201d with a voice that soared, pleaded, screamed and cajoled. She was everything one could want in a Tosca and her passionately sung %u201cVissi D%u2019Arte%u201d brought down the house.Her Tosca was not just the perfunctory head tone, chest tone, masque tone syndrome that effects the more ineffectual Toscas of today. She sang %u201ca la Callas%u201d occasionally sacrificing the loveliness for a coarser quality if it suited the drama. Hers was a thrilling Tosca, one of the best in memory.Enrico Caruso once replied to a reporter%u2019s query about what makes a great singer.The great tenor replied, %u201cNinety percent memory, ten percent intelligence and a big something in the heart.%u201d Ilona Simon possesses that special something, Veteran tenor Ephrain Puig was a clarion-voiced Cavaradossi and his two big arias, %u201cRecondita Armonia%u201d and the famous %u201cE Lucevan Le Stelle,%u201d were beautifully done with big applause, but he lacked that %u201csomething in the heart%u201d that was needed for so passionate a love as Tosca. He seemed to be thinking voice, not Tosca.The weakest link in this performance, however, was the Baron Scarpia of Baritone G. Eugene Moose. His interpretation of Scarpia was elegant, but too laid back; if there was subtlety it was lost on me. His entrance was weak where it should have been terrifying and his voice was dry and lacked cunning. He did seem to be an audience favorite nonetheless.All of the minor roles were well done and Jennifer Drummonds%u2019 shepherd was charming. Guest conductor Henry Shek gave a spirited reading of the lusty score: so much so, that his glasses flew off his head during the Act Two action. He is a conductor to watch, although some cues were weak. The orchestra was at its best during the fortissimo movements and the strings have improved tremendously. A fine ensemble.The excellent costumes by Selma Tepper were of the period and never tacky save for the sacristan (James Martindale) who looked more like Eleazar in La Juive than a monk. Gianni Simone%u2019s sets, as painted by Richard Paratley, were classic and stunning. The Castel St. Angelo scene with St. Peter%u2019s Dome in the background evoked glorious memories of the eternal city.The Regina Opera is the third major opera house in our city after the Met and City Opera, but there was more excitement in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, at the Regina than one would find at the Met of late.Incidentally, one of the best interpreters of the role of Cavaradossi, tenor Ralph James Bova, who was the subject of a coast to coast profile on NBC Television News as %u201cthe Brooklyn Pavarotti,%u201d lives a scant two blocks away from the home of Regina Opera. It%u2019s too bad his name does not adorn the roster of this wonderful rn m n a n v .TOSCA: Regina Opera, Directed by Gianni Simone and conducted by Henry Shek. June 7, 8pm; June 8, 4pm. Twelfth Avenue and 65th St. |7 or TDF; seniors $5; children free. Tel., BE2-3555.Page 22, TH E P H O E N IX , June 5, 1986