DATE: Thursday, September 11, 1997          TAG: 9709090125

SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS         PAGE: 08   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: THEATER REVIEW 

SOURCE: Montague Gammon III 

                                            LENGTH:   65 lines

``LONDON SUITE'' TROUPE HITS SOME NEIL SIMON HIGHS

Neil Simon's ``London Suite'' should put plenty of people in the seats at the Little Theatre of Norfolk.

For one thing, it's a comedy, and comedies are popular. For another, it's a comedy by Neil Simon, whose name alone can fill houses.

More importantly, parts of the show really are hilarious, and a couple of moments feature more serious acting of a very high order.

One of the funniest scenes anyone could hope for lay in the hands of fill-in performer Mark Woodard opening weekend. In ``The Man on the Floor,'' the last of four skits that make up ``London Suite,'' Woodard played a young man stricken with back spasms in his hotel room. His priceless reactions to various attempts to examine, move and just to communicate with him reveal fine talent at work.

While it's hard to predict if the regular cast member, when he returns to the show, will be as good as the virtuoso Woodard, he will at least be working with some exceptionally good raw material.

Woodard appeared in two other roles. He and Victoria Blake played an angry author and his slippery financial manager in ``Settling Accounts.'' The skit gives Blake opportunities to mug and clown amusingly. She's hardly stretching herself, but her efforts are fun to watch. Woodard was convincing and clever, leavening his character's anger with well-measured touches of sardonic humor.

``Going Home'' introduces K.T. Carlson and Lisa Randazzo, who play a mother-daughter pair. They're visiting London, the mother is widowed and apparently reclusive, and the daughter is trying to get her to start living a less solitary life. The thin plot and equally thin psychological analysis exist solely to justify a very funny monologue Carlson delivers about a disastrous date she has on this last night of their stay. Her description of compounding misfortunes is Simon close to his best.

``Diana and Sidney'' is the serious segment of the show. This time Blake plays an English actress who has become hugely successful in an American situation comedy. Randazzo is her secretary and personal assistant, and Woodard the long absent ex-husband of whom she is still intensely fond.

Sidney, Woodard's character, tells Diana of his gravely ill companion on the small Greek island where he now lives. Woodard is good again, in a characterization that lets him develop subtleties of personality and emotion.

Blake seems to be straining for her character's Britishness in the early moments of the piece, uncertain whether or not to play for comedy. Once she has Woodard to play against, she pulls her performance into focus. In a couple of emotional passages, she reveals an ability to produce intense feeling with surprising strength and credibility.

``The Man on the Floor'' is the finale, and was Woodard's show all the way. Everyone else - the hapless man's wife, the assistant manager of the hotel, the bellman and a buffoonish doctor - all exist as a frame around the comic agony of poor Mark.

Director Leslie Draper designed an appealing set. Lighting design, which worked unobtrusively, was by Scott Quick, and equally good costumes were by Lynn Cameron. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic

AT A GLANCE

WHAT: ``London Suite,'' by Neil Simon

WHEN: 8 p.m. Thursday - Saturday, and Sept. 19-20; 2:30 p.m.

Sunday, Sept. 14 and 21.

WHERE: Little Theatre of Norfolk, 801 Claremont Ave.

TICKETS: 627-8551

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