'THE GOOD DOCTOR' IS IN

Time will decide whether the names of Anton Chekov and Neil Simon belong in the same breath, but Simon's adaptation of Chekov short stories in the comedy "The Good Doctor" insures they always will be linked in some way.

It's a good match, actually, because both writers have a taste for seeing how people wiggle out of the difficulties life offers up.

The two-act play directed by Dr. Donald Schulte opens tonight at 8 at Rose Theatre. Performances continue Saturday, Wednesday, Thursday, Nov. 17 and 18.

"The Good Doctor" employs only two actors and two actresses playing a variety of roles in a series of sketches related only by Chekov's exquisite sense of internal dialogues made external and Simon's gift for uncovering the humor in uncomfortable situations.

"The Good Doctor" is rarely subtle -- much of the humor is decidedly physical -- almost always entertaining and at times touching.

Schulte's set consists of only a few benches and tables moved about between sketches and a backdrop suggesting Moscow. Megwyn Sanders' costumes infer late 19th century Russia as well.

The cast is uniformly first rate. Julie Stoverink and Tim Nicolai are hilarious in "A Defenseless Creature," a story about a high-pitched woman seeking funds from a gout-stricken banker. Aided in the scene by clerk Adam Rutledge, the two create an uproar.

The play is narrated by a writer (Roman Smith), who muses on the miseries of his craft and is given to providing alternate endings to his stories so that everything is made better by a gift of 5 million rubles.

In "The Seduction," Smith plays a man who makes a game of seducing other men's wives but finds the playing much more difficult when he encounters his friend's wife (Anna-Marie Martin).

Martin plays a governess and Stoverink her employer in "The Governess," a morality tale with a twist.

Rutledge makes a nuisance of himself in "The Sneeze" as a bureaucratic prole in charge of trees and bushes who fears he has offended or has been offended by his superior (Nicolai).

Those with dental fears may cringe during "The Surgery," in which Smith decides to extract an absessed tooth from Nicolai's aching clergyman without the benefit of a degree in dentistry. But Chekov and Simon turn the pain into hilarity.

Martin does a nice turn in "The Audition," a story any actor and actress will identify with. She returns to play a hooker in "The Arrangement," in which a father (Nicolai) proposes to introduce his son (Rutledge) to manhood the old-fashioned way.

Rutledge and Smith are a good combination in the decidedly odd story "The Drowned Man," in which a man solicits money for people to watch him drown. It doesn't sound funny but is.

"Too Late for Happiness" is a melancholy scene in which an older woman and older man begin in seated at a park begin a conversation in agreement that winters are getting longer and eventually sing a lovely duet wondering whether it is too late for them to love someone again.