Anson Williams asked me to tell my friends to go see the play Middletown, a Broadway hopeful on stage through Sunday at Delaware Theater Company on the Wilmington Riverfront. I’m happy to share the news because the cast and play truly deserve a wider audience.
Williams, best known for playing Potsie on the 1970s series Happy Days, is one of a quartet of gifted actors who could be sitting home counting their royalty checks but are instead trodding the boards–and putting on top-notch performances. Williams, for many years a producer, took on his first acting role in 20 years. He costars with an ebullient Sally Struthers, who won two Emmys for her iconic role as Gloria in All in the Family; spunky Didi Conn, aka Frenchy in Grease; and smoothie Adrian Zmed, late of TJ Hooker.
Middletown, the North Jersey locale where the characters meet as their daughters start kindergarten, is best known as the community second only to New York in casualties of 911. (Spoiler alert: this hits home in the play.) The play follows their friendship of more than 30 years, through thick and thin and copious dinners at their favorite Italian restaurant.
I like Williams’ character Don because he’s a pool man like my dad. He’s a mensch who drinks beer and loves his wife Dotty, played by Conn. Struthers plays Peg, a Smith-educated stay-at-home mom, married to Zmed’s Tom, a writer who loves poetry.
There’s no scenery, which doesn’t seem to matter because the actors are so engaging.
After the show, the cast mingles with the audience. Cheese and crackers and wine in plastic cups on a rainy night in Delaware–and they appear truly happy to be there.
Struthers, cute as a button at 71, hugs her fans and entreats them to hold their cellphones above their heads as they snap selfies. (It makes us all look younger!) She tells me that most of friends–“two years younger to five years older”–can’t find roles but she keeps working. Zmed signs autographs in the lobby. Williams tells us he had great pasta at Mrs Robino’s in Little Italy the other night. Conn gives me a hug and a smile. Later, she waves to my guy Dave and me when we see her and Williams after the show at Iron Hill Brewery, sadly the only place we can find open at 9 p.m. on a Thursday night.
Yes, yes, go see Middletown. If you appreciate live theater and gifted actors, you will find it’s your kind of place.
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