Ed Simpson

Elephant Sighs Ed Simpson Samuel French a edition

Comedy / 5m Not long after moving to the small town of Randolphsburg, PA, uptight lawyer Joel Bixby is invited by Leo Applegate, an avuncular fast food connoisseur, to join a group of townsmen who meet in a ramshackle room at the edge of town. Leo has chosen Joel as a replacement for the late - and greatly beloved - Walter Deagon. Despite protesting that he's just not an organizational man, Joel finds himself mesmerized by Leo's ebullient manner and agrees to drop by - without ever asking just what exactly it is the group actually does. Determining that the meeting will at least help him network with potential clients, Joel arrives, hoping that the group's purpose will eventually become clear. Joel's confusion only increases as, one by one, he meets the group's surviving members who includes Dink, a perpetually gleeful little man who deeply loves his bald-headed wife and who is "in touch with his feminine side"; insurance man Perry, a former minister in the midst of a painful crisis of faith; and Nick, a volatile contractor who has recently lost his job and family and is desperately looking for some kind of miracle. As an increasingly anxious Joel is swept up in the strange lives of the guys, he struggles to figure out exactly why they've all come together. The more time he spends with them, the more apparent it becomes that each of them are just as lost as Joel. As the evening progresses, however, the regulars - and newcomer Joel - grapple with their own disappointments, offer comfort to each other, and, in the process, finally reveal the mysterious reason for their gathering. A group of delightful characters highlight this comedy about loss, loneliness, and the healing power of friendship. "Critic's Choice... Ed Simpson's riotous new male bonding comedy Elephant Sighs is deceptively unassuming.... The mostly blue-collar characters speak in a hilarious hybrid of uneducated obtuseness and politically correct buzz words. Don't let the surface banality fool you. The emotions of these men, however imperfectly communicated, are agonizing, their need for comfort and companionship as acute as hunger and thirst." - F. Kathleen Foley, Los Angeles Times