'Sunshine Boys' warms Sarasota audiences
jmorreale@bradenton.comJune 15, 2013   Dan Higgs, left, and Bob
Trisolini star in the Players Theatre of Sarasota production of
"The Sunshine Boys." PUBLICITY PHOTO  Neil Simon's "The Sunshine
Boys" is light entertainment and nothing more. But it has some
real challenges for actors.  Its two main characters, retired
vaudeville comedians named Lewis and Clark, are longtime stage
partners who apparently never liked each other once they left
the theater. Years before the action of the play, Lewis had
abruptly announced his retirement, leaving Clark alone,
unemployed and embittered in a seedy New York hotel.  The
central problem for the actors who play Lewis and Clark is that
they have to be curmudgeonly, but not quite mean, and they have
to be hostile to each other while they let the audience see that
they really love each other. And they have to be funny while
they're doing all that.  Bob Trisolini and Dan Higgs do an
impressive job of achieving that balance in the Play