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Red Hot Lover's antics mimic Goldie Locks'
 Kristen J. Kubisiak
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If you thought the "Last of the Red Hot Lovers" was an awkwardly molded seafood restaurant owner with the disposition of a pre-pubescent school boy, you would not have been at all surprised by this weekend's show at Pioneer Place.
Neil Simon's bawdy three-act play set in the '70s is the story of Barney, played by Peter Jensen, and his extramarital misadventures with three would-be mistresses Elaine (Patty Soltis), Bobbi (Sarah Jean Egbers) and Jeanette (Deb Birchler). Through his sometimes painfully awkward encounters with different women in his mother's apartment, the audience watches Barney evolve from a clumsy one-manned wet bar to a stylin' and profilin' ladies' man.
The three acts can be likened to "Goldie Locks and the Three Bears" when our heroine tries three different types of porridge. Except in the play, instead of porridge, Barney tries women and finds himself less successful than Goldie Locks in his search to find one that is "just right."
Like the first bowl of porridge, Barney's first woman is too hot for him to handle. Soltis really brought the character of Elaine to life with a dry humor and sarcasm that seemed to flow naturally from her lips, but Barney's oration near the end of the act dragged on a bit too much.
The second woman was not too hot, nor too cold, just a little too neurotic and stoned. Egbers portrayal of Bobbi, an out of work lounge singer and part time pothead ("for medicinal purposes") was the favorite at the Pioneer Place. The audience roared with laughter as she told her dramatic tales of Hollywood agents with sharpened teeth, Nazi vocal instructors and a kidnapped Lhasa Apso. The second act was by far the most engaging of the three.
By the final act, poor Barney thinks he has finally figured out how to seduce a woman, but for him the third time was definitely not the charm with Jeanette, a mutual friend of his and Thelma's (his unseen wife). Birchler does an excellent job as the manic depressive pocket book-clutching Jeanette who wants to do nothing other than philosophize about the decency and indecency of the world and all it lacks in the areas of love and kindness.
Whether it is in the name of human decency or just weariness of all of the affairs that had never been, Barney has an unsurprising revelation. Overall, the performance was a little drawn out, but humorous, although I wouldn't call it "Red Hot."
Up next at the Pioneer Place: "The Foreigner," running April 11-14.
Kristen J. Kubisiak can be reached at: [email protected]
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