Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans, John Lennon famously noted, and Neil Simon understands. His plays are never about "the main event," but what happens to people when they're preparing for the main event. That's why he's renowned as the funniest playwright alive: real comedy comes from behind the scenes.

His play "The Sunshine Boys," currently running at the Leddy Center, is loosely based on the vaudeville comedy team of Smith and Dale, who in fact met as boys during a bicycle mishap; their bickering was so amusing that a store clerk who saw the whole thing told them they sounded like a comedy team. They decided to give it a try, and spent the next 70 years performing together. Smith said, after Dale's death in 1971, "Only God could separate us."

When the play opens, the comedy team of Lewis and Clark is history. They broke up 11 years before, when Al Lewis (Tim Robinson) rather selfishly decided to retire and take up a career in stockbrokering. Willie Clark (Paul Gustavson) swore he'd never forgive him, even though the bookings were getting few and far between anyway. Now Ben Silverman (A. Robert Dionne), Willie Clark's nephew and agent, is giving his uncle one of the very few offers Willie's received since the split: to re-team with his old pal Al for a one-night-only gig on CBS, with the biggest names in comedy, past and present. Willie reminds his nephew of his earlier promise, never to speak to Al again, but Ben responds with some pretty impressive verbal tap-dancing and gets his uncle to agree. Once the old pair is in the same room, it isn't long before the fireworks start. In the world of comedy, Who's Funnier Than Who is a bigger contest than the real-world contest of Whose Member is Bigger Than Whose, and these two spend the whole play dueling with metaphorical measuring sticks.

A. Robert Dionne, playing the devoted nephew, is wonderful. His character feels about his impossible uncle the way we've all felt about an impossible relative: he wants to kill him. Yet Dionne also shows us love seeping out of every pore. Christina Hamilton, as the "Nurse" in the comedy sketch, is so gorgeous and voluptuous, she should have an X-rating every time she drops her car keys. Nicci Pilotte is hilarious as the nurse who ain't taking no crap, thank you very much.

But the entire play rests on the shoulders of its two stars, Paul Gustavson and Tim Robinson, and the two have enormous chemistry-throughout their bickering, you can literally see years of playing in small clubs, sharing a dressing room, taking whatever jabs were available.

Paul Gustavson skillfully portrays the curmudgeonly Willie Clark, who underneath all the repeated stories and nasty swipes just wants someone to want to watch him.Without feeling manipulated to do so, we get a little weepy for this man, so caught in his past. He walks the tightrope between funny and tragic with ease.

And Tim Robinson plays Al Lewis with genius. He knows how to find the moment, find the word, find the pause, find the gesture-how to find the funny. He also knows how to find the poignant, find the bittersweet, the truth. He combines the two in a hilarious and heartbreaking character you'll not soon forget.

Elaine Gatchell cast this show well and directed her cast even better. She's found the best in every element, and the result is a gem of a show.

The Sunshine Boys runs at The Leddy Center through March 20, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. The Leddy Center is located at 131-133 Main St., Epping. Call 603-679-2781 for tickets.