Daily News from New York, New York • 55

NEW YORK'S BEST ENTERTAINMENT SECTION (, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1 8, 1988 5 LD nn in JJLI LnJLe By HOWARD KISSEL Daily News Drama Critic RUMORS. By Neil Simon. With Ron Leibman, Jessica Walter, Christine Baranski, Lisa Banes, Charles Brown, Joyce Van Patten, Ken Howard and others. Set by Tony Straiges. Costumes by Joseph G.

Aulisi. Directed by Gene Saks. At the Broadhurst Neil Simon's on automatic pilot in 'Rumors' and he's running Jessica Walter spits out her lines with an angry edge, Joyce Van Patten has a goony likeability and the effervescent Christine Baranski, as usual, is consistently funny even when what she has to do is just plain stupid. Ron Leibman, who hammers the jokes home all evening long, has an extremely un-funny monologue at the end that he does so maniacally it leaves you dumfounded. Charles Brown has real strength as a policeman.

Tony Straiges set is classy and Joseph G. Aulisi's costumes, particularly the women's party dresses, are wittily stylish. But you have the feeling Gene Saks didn't so much direct the cast as whip them into a frenzy. You wonder if they're not exhausting themselves and us to make up for the fact that The Other Simon runs on OMETIMES I WONDER IF THERE AREN'T TWO i Neil Simons. There's the one who writes autobiographical on empty automatic pilot CAST: (from top) Andre Gregory.

Jessica Walter, Joyce Van Patten, Ken Howard, Ron Leibman, Lisa Banes, Christine Baranski and Mark Nelson plays, which are funny in a touching way and often courageous in exploring material that must be difficult for him. Then there's The Other Neil Simon, who turns out comedies with no soul, where every other line is intended to get a laugh, as if to meet some abstract quota. This is the one who wrote "Rumors." This Simon seems to send a stock boy flying around a room in which jokes are stored in bins. In one there's infantile humor having to do with names rhyming or starting with the same letter. Another bin has running gags about pains in various parts of the characters anatomies.

One bin has actual humor, but there wasn't much in it, unlike the one with a heavy inventory of Name Brand Humor, lines that work on the assumption that naming a product automatically gets a laugh. Sample: "I was so desperate for a cigaret I lit a Q-Tip." Simon himself is a Name Brand Product. Based on previous experiences, the audience has come to laugh. Like tinder, the least spark sets them off. Ostensibly, "Rumors" is about an anniversary party at which The Husband has just tried to kill himself and The Wife is nowhere to be found.

The guests scurry to keep each other from discovering this. The ensuing confusion and general hysteria are probably what made Simon call the play a farce. But farce is mathematical in its logic. It has to be handled with the precision and elegance of a rapier. "Rumors" is scattershot.

The cast expends superhuman energy in selling the jokes. The play starts at a pitch of near insanity and is afraid to relax for a second, lest anyone notice it's all fake. The only letup comes when Ken Howard and Lisa Banes, a bitterly unhappy couple, arrives. They are the only ones who have a reality apart from the artificial situation in which they And themselves, and their humor has weight i in -j ANN WILLIAM A.YJrLlJUH S3 LANDERS NORWICH.