The romance of Gene Wilder and Gilda Radner was only 8 years long, cut short by her death from ovarian cancer. But for those who were around in the 1980s, we remember a romance for the ages. Playwright Cary Gitter has crafted a wonderful script here that shows their passion, their idiosyncrasies and their insecurities.

The show begins with Wilder (Jonathan Randall Silver) being interviewed by Dick Cavett (who provided the voice) a couple years after the death of Radner (Jordan Kai Burnett). Wilder does not want to talk about the relationship so Radner pops into his mind and prods him forward. They then play out the scenes of their lives.

There is a lot of laughter between the two, as you would expect. Two comedians near the peak of their careers should have a romance heavily seasons with grins, giggles and guffaws. This show provides them. At the same time, the life of a comedian working in TV and movies is not without drama.

Wilder had more than his share of phobias (he would not look out of his 19^th story window of his hotel because of a fear of heights). In one scene, Radner enters to find Wilder so down in the dumps about scripts he is offered that he is eating the paper. Silver nails the dramatic bits.

Burnett’s role has just as much seriousness. Radner knew the world of TV and comedy in the 1980s was an old-boys’ network, and her frustrations at breaking through that shows that Burnett can do serious as well as silliness.

Both were damaged individuals (a disproportionate number of comedians are), but they handled their pain differently, Radner was a force-of-nature extrovert. Wilder was whatever the exact opposite of that is. It is this difference that makes the whole thing work on stage and in the real world. She continues battering on the walls he has built around himself, and in the end, even he admits she got in. And they were both better for it.

If you take the names Gene and Gilda and change them to Jack and Jill, the show still works. This romance happens to be about two celebrities, but the story and script are such that it does not depend on them being Gene and Gilda.

This kind of show it tricky for the playwright and the actors. The audience thinks they know the characters before the curtain goes up. But the actors on stage are playing roles crafted by the playwright, not playing the people on whom the character is based. In this instance, the script and the performances were entirely consistent with the public image of the couple.

Silver and Burnett play the characters as roles rather than doing impersonations of Wilder and Radner. Yes, he wears his hair like Wilder did. She pulls the faces that made Radner the TV star she was. But at no point do they devolve into a nightclub act where you feel like they are going to do impressions of 42 other celebrities. They achieve the necessary verisimilitude that makes the show work and director Joe Brancato is largely responsible for the threading of this needle.

For two comedians who exceled at physical silliness, there is only a little of it shown here. Max Silverman’s original music provides a couple of dance breaks that should have gone on a little longer because they were truly hilarious. However, to do so would probably prove a distraction to the story.

This is not the first time these artists have worked together on this particular play. “Gene and Gilda” had its premier at the Penguin Rep in Stony Point, NY in 2023, and they performed it at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, New Jersey in 2024. It shows. Silver and Burnett have a chemistry that has clearly been built over time, and it would be a shame if the producers did not find a way to get this onto a Broadway stage soon.

Running time: 75 minutes without intermission

“Gene and Gilda” is playing through September 7, 2025 at 59 E 59^th Theaters in Manhattan. For more information and tickets visit the theater’s site.