simonesque

When advertising executive Marshall Karp decided to try playwriting in 1979, he read every Neil Simon comedy. \”One thing I learned is that certain characters can get away with murder,\” says Karp, 60, whose Simonesque play, \”Squabbles,\” opens at the Huntington Beach Playhouse June 21. \”An elderly curmudgeon-like Walter Matthau from \’The Sunshine Boys\’ can say anything and get a laugh. Put the same words in a 30-year-old mouth and people will want to smack him.\”\n\nKarp took heed and envisioned his protagonist as a crotchety coot. Then he asked his wife a loaded question. \”I said, \’What would happen if your father lived with us and my mother moved in?\’ And she said, \’My God, that would be a disaster.\’\”\n\nThe idea provided the premise for \”Squabbles,\” which pits cranky ex-cabbie Abe Dreyfus against an equally crabby in-law. The battleground is the home of their respective children: \”I couldn\’t exactly throw [my mother] out in the cold,\” Abe\’s son-in-law says.