The 2016 theater season kicked off with California Suite, which ran from Oct. 20-23. The Neil Simon comedy originally ran in 1976 and was quickly made into a feature film featuring Jane Fonda, Bill Cosby, Michael Caine, and more A-list actors and actresses. The play is divided into four acts, each situated in Suite 203-04 in The Beverly Hills Hotel.
In the first act, businesswoman Hannah Warren (junior Madeleine Myers) feuds with her ex-husband Billy (freshman Josh Lefkowitz) over the living situation of their daughter. Next, businessman Marvin Michaels (senior Austin Buholtz) wakes up after a night of drinking to find an unknown woman (junior Jessie White/sophomore Caleigh Griffin) in bed with him. With his wife Millie (senior Natalie Hoeg) on the way from Philadelphia, Marvin frantically tries to cover up his act. In the third act, The Plaza, Norma (senior Lydia Gifford) and Roy (senior Ian Costello) Hubley find that their daughter Mimsey (junior Hannah Mosher) has locked herself in the bathroom on her wedding day, leaving the would-be groom Borden Eisler (sophomore Jack Sammet) and his family waiting at the reception. Finally, couple Mort (senior Jimmy Hurley) and Beth (sophomore Camille Castillo) Hollender get into an argument with their friends Stu (Costello) and Gert (sophomore Lorelei Gifford) Franklyn after Beth is injured in their tennis match.
What most impressed me was the ability for the teen actors and actresses to portray characters in mature situations, such as divorce and adultery, in a comical but2 realistic way. Director Donna Walker explained that although they are teenagers, the students are no less prepared for these roles.
“Obviously most of the time adolescent actors are on stage, they are dealing with material or themes that (thankfully) they have no experience with in real life,” Walker said. “Anytime I have students dealing with a situation that is completely foreign to them we explore the magic ‘what if’, which is imagining how your character feels and reacts to something based on your own reaction to something similar from your own life.”
For White and Griffin, this idea was taken to the extreme, as their character Bunny is a female escort.
“Bunny was by far the most mature character I have ever played,” White said. “ I was especially nervous about the costume, but after wearing it for a bit, I felt completely comfortable. My character wouldn’t be worried about it, so I couldn’t be. Now I think of it as something to look back on and laugh about!”
Another aspect of the play that was different from many previous ones was the small cast size. In fact, there were never more than four people on stage at a time. I thought that these smaller numbers created a greater sense of intimacy between the characters and an atmosphere the audience could more clearly understand. Stage Manager Kismet Kohn, a freshman, believes that working with a smaller group made the play better for both the audience and the cast and crew.
“Having a small amount of the cast on stage allowed for a more stress free environment, since there were extra people to help out,” Kohn said. “We also were able to use our time more wisely, since we could call two scenes per day and we wouldn’t have to worry about people being absent and not being able to rehearse.”
My personal favorite scene was the second, featuring Buholtz, Hoeg and Griffin/White. Buholtz’s frantic voice and wild excuses coupled by Hoeg’s skeptical reactions created an absurdity that left me and my friends laughing long after the lights dimmed.
As for Walker’s favorite?
“Good mothers don’t pick a favorite child,” Walker said.
