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California Suite - May, 1999
A Play in Three Acts
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Act One, The Couple from New York
Joe played Marvin Michaels, a 45 year old married man who has traveled to California for his nephew's Bar Mitzvah. The scene opens early in the morning in the hotel suite bedroom, where Marvin awakens with a hangover from partying at his brother's house the previous night, only to discover a drunk hooker unconscious in his bed. Sheer panic ensues when Marvin realizes that he has overslept and missed picking up his wife Millie (played by Leslie Barkman) at the airport, and she is on her way up in the elevator and will walk through door of the suite at any moment.

One of Neil Simon's funniest scenes, this role is written as a license for the actor to rise to the level of barely controlled insanity. One moment he is hiding the hooker from his wife and the next trying to distract Millie and prepare her for the worst news of their marriage.
The lightning-fast transitions between physical buffoonery (he must carry the drunk hooker around like a sack of potatoes trying to hide her body) and verbal comedy means the actor must be prepared for a real workout, and must also stay very focused on what is happening from moment-to-moment.
Eventually, all of Marvin's attempts at concealment and deception fail and his relationship with Millie comes crumbling down, until he humbles himself before his wife's rage and accepts his lot as a man caught in the wheels of fate (and marriage).

I was very lucky to land this role after not doing any theater since my college years. The audition was one of those wonderful experiences where I overprepared and shocked the onlookers into laughing uncontrollably, and walked out knowing that even if I weren't cast, I had at least given it my all. The Director, Margaret Chase, cast me and asked me to keep going with the role "to the limit". She gave us a lot of leeway to run with the characters and made sure that the physical action was fast and outrageous, keeping the audience on a nonstop rollercoaster ride of suspense and laughter. The work was so physically demanding that I shed several pounds during every performance. All in all the audience seemed to really enjoy it, and Leslie and I had a helluva lot of fun!

Rehearsal Pictures (click to go there) (NOTE: that page has lots of BIG pictures and takes awhile to download)