It’s so easy to make a story about wealthy people’s foibles exhaustingly on-the-nose and more preachy, depressing, or frustrating than entertaining. Neil Simon’s Rumors premiered before Seinfeld and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia — and was likely an inspiration for the former — but now that these stories have dominated the “stories about terrible people” genre in our 2025 consciousness, others must fight for relevancy and unique excellence. With a play, this fight comes down to performance.
It’s even harder to make a story about “bad people” both enlightening and entertaining when the story in question centers around very real, difficult marital strife. Neil Simon’s prose is full of easily missed subtleties that keep all this from being an emotional slog — it requires performances that bring them out for Simon’s meaning to shine through, which the Vienna Theatre Company delivers under Eddie Page’s direction. These performances blend moments of exposition into convincing conversation. We love to hate these characters as this production represents them; we see their reasoning for their terrible behavior and even sympathize, while seeing clearly where they strayed.
Simon wrote this farce, which premiered in 1988, in response to some “difficult times,” having to do with an impending divorce. This context illuminates how the play juxtaposes ridiculous, self-imposed challenges — childlike pettiness and selfishness in a relationship — with real ones — indicated by central character Charley Brock’s attempt to take his own life — and in doing so, shows the utter waste of losing perspective on meaningless battles. If a production of Rumors brings out these subtleties in performance to lay bare the utter stupidity of these disputes per Neil Simon’s likely intent (he did call the play Rumors: A Farce), the central dichotomy fueling the play’s brilliant satire comes to life. And the Vienna Theatre Company’s production does it right.
Much of these subtleties in performance come down to the tiniest of physical gestures, pauses, and enunciations to create maximum realism in delivery, and to fully cement who these characters are.
From the very beginning of the show, Ilan Komrad and Liz Owerbach as Ken Gorman and Chris Gorman — the first couple to discover Charley’s attempted suicide — pull these roles off beautifully. Komrad, a 7-year veteran of video game voiceover work, employs a flawless Bugs Bunny impression for his performance. The cast jacks up the script’s humor to such a hilariously effective degree that the Looney Tunes echo isn’t a distraction but more humor the show mines wonderfully.
Dave Wright excels in giving us a profoundly likable Lenny Ganz, delivering his famous monologue with authenticity rather than mania. His use of stuttering throughout most of the scene adds realism and appeal — so that when he doesn’t stutter in the part where he describes how much he really, really loves his wife, we see how much that part, if nothing else, is real — all of which reinforces how much we already like Lenny. Ann Brodnax is a phenomenal Claire Ganz, delivering her one-liners from inside glass houses with believability and real vividness in the way of the character’s amusing hypocrisy. Christian Aguilar is a powerful presence as Officer Welch.
As Glenn Cooper and Cassie Cooper, Nick Koutris and Katie Bierly perfectly execute the image of a self-obsessed, aspiring politician and the young woman he’s dressed up as his trophy wife. Bierly plays her with nuance — as someone who already wasn’t the most selfless individual but has been pushed by her chauvinist husband, who’s just fine with humiliating her in public, into doing whatever she can to feel autonomous in her relationship. Bierly has been dressed in a hyper-short sparkly gold-sequin dress that she keeps having to pull down. Bierly’s wardrobe, hair, performance, and casting make her appear significantly younger than Koutris — not to mention he’s several feet taller — telling us all we need to know about this arrangement. Koutris plays Glenn’s aggressive misogyny with piercing realism, and the rest of the cast’s awkward silence and expressions in key moments bring to life the silent complicity of the other party guests during and after each disparaging remark.
Koutris’ Glenn’s abuse of this extremely young woman, as well as his fast-talking persona and full beard, make him reminiscent of more than one relevant political figure. Intentional or not, this casting and Michelle Harris’ costume and hair and makeup design subtly remind us of this character’s modern counterparts.
Any faltering in this production is barely noticeable. In moments, the men’s tuxedos and tuxedo shirts don’t appear to fit as well as they should, particularly at the beginning of the night before the unfolding insanity — especially in the case of Glenn, who as a womanizing politician type would likely be fitted meticulously.
Also — based on a previous viewing of this play and a skim of multiple script PDFs — I believe this production may have added significantly more profanities than were in the original script, particularly the use of “Jesus” and variations thereof. If any were added, the profanities frequently extended beyond weaving the play’s narrative fabric and became distracting. More caveating for “strong adult language throughout” would be appreciated.
The Vienna Theatre Company has put on a phenomenal production with uniquely excellent performers. They have succeeded in performing an especially difficult piece of theater that has stood the test of time for a reason — and will continue to shed insight on how we relate to each other no matter which decade it’s seen in. Go see it in this one.
Running Time: Approximately two hours and 15 minutes plus a 15-minute intermission.
Rumors plays through February 2, 2025, presented by Vienna Theatre Company performing at Vienna Community Center, 120 Cherry St SE, Vienna, VA. Tickets, priced at $16, are available online or in person at the Vienna Community Center.
COVID Safety: Wearing masks is optional.
Rumors by Neil Simon
Directed by Eddie Page
