A little-known Neil Simon gem serves as the inspired source for Neil Simon’s Musical Fools, a delightfully tuneful, downright hilarious Open Fist Theatre Company musical comedy surprise.

Like the 1981 Broadway play on which it is based, Neil Simon’s Musical Fools transports us to 19th-century Ukraine, where handsome young Leon Steponovich Tolchinsky (James Byous) has accepted a teaching post only to discover upon arrival that the town of Kulyenchikov has been cursed with stupidity these past two-hundred years.

 Take for instance Snetsky (Parvesh Cheena), a shepherd so moronic, he asks Leon “Did you happen to see two dozen sheep? There are fourteen of them,” and when quizzed about his full name can only respond, “Something Something Snetsky.”

And he’s not the only dolt in town. There’s Magistrate Kupchik (Beth Robbins), overjoyed to learn she’ll live to the ripe old age of eighty. (Trouble is, she’s already seventy-nine.) There’s inept mailman Mishkin (Hank Jacobs), who’s got a crush on Yenchna (Cat Davis), a fish vendor so imbecilic she’s selling flowers this morning because “Why should I suffer because the fisherman had a bad day?” There’s carrot-topped vegetarian butcher Slovich (Brendan Mulally), under the blissful misconception that Kulyenchikov is part of “Mother Poland.”

Most significantly for our handsome hero, there’s town physician Nikolai Zubritsky (Derek Manson), his wife Lenya (Robyn Roth), and their daughter Sophia (Clare Snodgrass), a maiden as beauteous as she is brainless, and whom Leon must smarten up in the next twenty four hours or not only will the curse remain unbroken, Sophia will be forced to marry the dastardly Count Gregor (Jason Paige), whose ancestor first put the curse in motion back in 1691.

With Simon providing the original Fools script (for whose dialog he receives book-writing and co-lyricist credit), it matters not that the late great King Of Comedy played no active role in the musical’s creation.

It’s a collaboration that works quite wonderfully thanks as much to a succession of imbecility-based Neil Simon one-liners (“Lenya, bolt the door. Draw the curtains.” “I can’t draw curtains. I can draw a cat or a fish …”) as it is to Phil Swann and Ron West’s songs.

The show-opening “The Arrival” adds an exuberant full-cast prologue not in the Simon original. A few lines of dialog inspire “The New,” which has Nikolai and Lenya attempting in vain to remember in rhyme what Leon’s job is called and failing miserably. And Swann and West turn Leon’s solo account of how Kulyenchikov came to be cursed into a musical flashback featuring young lovers Casimir and Sophia (Jack Sharpe and Juliane Hagn), Sophia’s disapproving father Mikhail (Cheena), and Count Gregor’s cursifying ancestor Vladimir (Jacobs).

Swann and West’s catchy songs run the musical gamut from the uber-romantic “If Only You Knew Me” to the seductive tango rhythms of “The Rivals” to the power-ballad high notes of “Because You Like Me,” to name just three of its most memorable tunes.

All of this adds up to just about as perfect an adaptation as any Neil Simon and/or musical theater lover could hope for, directed by West with abundant joie de stupidité and performed by an all-around stellar cast of Open Fist company members and guest artists.

Byous’s Leon is blessed with leading-man dash and panache (and vocals to match), Open Fist favorites Manson and Roth are as charming and golden-throated a couple of married morons as any foolishness lover could wish for, UCLA musical theater grad Snodgrass makes for a luminous, crystal-voiced Sophia, and Paige’s deliciously despicable Gregor shows off sky-high pipes to do any rock star proud.

Cheena, Davis, Jacobs, Mulally, Robbins, and Sharpe are absolutely fabulous as Kulyenchikov’s most brain-deprived featured players, with Genatossio, Hagn, Diane Reneé, Bolor Saruul, and Sharpe delivering the multi-talented cameo goods every song-and-dance step of the way, whether vocalizing unamped to Jan Roper’s pitch-perfect musical direction and her topnotch four-piece combo* (kudos too to music arranger Luke Harrington and sound designer Tim Labor) or cutting up a rug to choreographer Louisa Kendrick Burton’s jaunty dance moves.

Last but not least, thanks to Bruce Dickinson and Ina Shumaker (properties), Jan Munroe (sets), Mylette Nora (costumes), Matt Richter and Mary Keegan (lighting), who give Neil Simon’s Musical Fools its distinctive Ukranian Pysanky Egg-inspired storybook-style production design, there’s no more vibrantly colorful show in town.

Indeed, the production’s only minus is a program lacking in headshots or a song/singer list to remind audiences who played whom and who sang what.

Neil Simon’s Musical Fools’ professional world premiere is produced by Martha Demson. Caroline Klidonas is associate producer. Ben D. Goldberg (Gregor), Bruce Green (Dr. Zubrisky), Demetrius Hartman (Leon) are alternate leads.

Jennifer Palumbo is production stage manager. Amanda Weier and Art Hall are production managers.

Regional theaters looking for a guaranteed crowd-pleaser to add to an upcoming season are hereby advised to take note of Neil Simon’s Musical Fools. In the meantime, L.A. audiences can count themselves fortunate indeed to get the country’s first professional look at this irresistible musical treat.

*Matt Germaine, Roper, Ross Wright alternating with Ryan Roberts, and Adam Snow

Open Fist Theatre Company @ Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave., Atwater Village.
www.openfist.org

–Steven Stanley
October 14, 2019
Photos: Darrett Sanders

Tags: Los Angeles Theater Review, Neil Simon, Open Fist Theatre Company, Phil Swann, Ron West