Spotlight: The Good Doctor (2012)

A Comedy with Heart — and a NODA Review Worth Reading

Neil Simon's The Good Doctor isn't a play in the conventional sense. It's a series of short stories — comic, bittersweet, sometimes absurd — linked together by a single narrator: The Writer. Inspired by the tales of Anton Chekhov, Simon takes us on a tour of human folly, vanity, and tenderness, each sketch a small gem of observation about the way we live.

When the Torrington Players staged The Good Doctor in 2012, the result was an evening that drew warmth, laughter, and genuine admiration from the NODA adjudicator. The review noted that The Writer's performance left the audience feeling as though they'd been invited round for a coffee and a chat with an old friend — genial, engaging, and quietly wise throughout.

"I loved the way he was woven into the stories in these different ways and his genial portrayal left you feeling like you'd been invited round for a coffee and a chat with an old friend. He successfully managed to keep us engaged while surrounding himself with characters from his imagination and taught us a few moral lessons along the way!"

— NODA Review, The Good Doctor, 2012

One of the evening's standout moments came in the audition scene, staged with real theatrical imagination. The director's voice came from the back of the auditorium — heard but unseen — while the auditionee performed in isolated pools of light carved out of the darkness. The NODA reviewer was struck by both the staging and the performance:

"The story was staged and played excellently, using various spots to slice out pools of light in the darkness, in which the auditionee performed — and what a fantastic job she did, selling her talent not only to the hidden Director, but also to us, her audience."

— NODA Review, The Good Doctor, 2012

The review also saved special praise for a last-minute understudy who stepped in to play the Woman in The Defenceless Creature — book in hand, thrown in at short notice — and delivered a performance so convincingly irritating that the adjudicator confessed she wanted to slap her for being so annoying. In theatrical terms, there is no higher compliment.

The Good Doctor is a production the Players look back on with real fondness — a show that demonstrated the company's range, its willingness to tackle complex material, and its ability to find the humanity in even the most comic of situations.