Family, friends, and Suffolk students joined together this past weekend in the studio theatre of Donahue to support the theatre department as they brought the Fall Showcase to life. This year four plays were introduced, which included Yesterday, Scalpel, Please, The Dangers of Eating Dessert Before Dinner, and Daydream.
The first play introduced was Yesterday, written and directed by Paige Monopoli.
The audience is introduced to Mr. Harper, a miserable old man played by Raphael Roy. Mr. Harper is sitting in the nursing home, attempting to write a memoir, where Mr. Rosetti interrupts him, played by Alex Pappas. As the two play a quick game of Go Fish, Mr. Harper becomes disgruntled, telling him to leave. As the stage is set to entertain, busting quick jokes, the show takes an expected turn as Mr. Harper has a flashback.
The scene is set to a young Sam Harper, played by Eddie Hernon, reading the want ads on a park bench in the Boston Common. There he meets Felicity, played by Stephanie Rubino, and the two talk about fate and soul mates. Felicity then leaves Sam, telling him that if this is fate, the two will cross paths. One thing leads to another, and the audience learns that Felicity was indeed Sam Harper’s soul mate. Sniffles and stifled cries erupt from the audience as Felicity tells Mr. Harper to either put the pen down, a suicide to his creativity, or to hold the pen and continue to write.
The second play, Scalpel, Please written and directed by Conor R. E. Walsh, lightened the mood of the audience, with its quick puns and classic story line. Meet Dr. Honeyweather, played by Alex Pappas, a heart surgeon who is not the sharpest scalpel on the operation table. Dr. Honeyweather finds himself confronted with Paley, played by Nick Castellano and his daughter Crystal, played by Raya Malcolm, a man who is in immediate need for open heart surgery.
As Dr. Honeyweather agrees to perform the surgery, the truth comes out: Paley is a member of the Irish Mob, and if anything is to go wrong in surgery, his hit men, Jimmy and Jim, played by Christine Vlahos and Nicole Banks, will ‘whack him off’. As expected, Dr. Honeyweather and Crystal go behind Paley’s back and fall in love, only adding to the hilarity of the situation
The third play, Daydream, written and directed by Tom Martin, captivates the audience with its highly ethical topics, which include euthanasia, rape, religion, and death. Dean, played by Roy, is brought back home after moving to New York City to become an actor, upon the death of his father.
As he is sitting waiting at the bus stop, he runs into Rose, played by Rebecca Bernardo. The audience learns that Dean and Rose had a relationship in the past, but when she left without a trace, Dean is betrayed and hurt. At this point, the audience realizes that Dean is a wounded soul, with the burden that he believes he killed his father, and that his brother is ill with cancer, and that his mother is an irrational, overbearing alcoholic. As each topic is addressed, the audience realizes how hurt Dean is, once his brother Luke, played by Joe Graham, tells him that he is okay with dying, at his own command.
At this point, Luke asks Dean to kill him, saying he has been reading the Bible and is okay with dying. As Dean feels his world slipping out of control, he mentally breaks down, only to be pieced back together by the help of Rose.
The story continues to deepen as Rose admits to Dean that his father raped her, the reason why she left without a trace seven years ago.
The overbearing mother Mona, played by Laurie Riihimaki, knows Rose’s secret, which was the rape did not happen, but rather she was just a girl obsessed with a man she could not have, and calls her out. Daydream is not meant for the light hearted, which each topic intertwining with one another, but for those who enjoy a storyline with deep meaning
To close the Showcase, the final production was The Dangers of Eating Dessert Before Dinner, written by Rachel Fund and directed by Alexa Costa. Set up like a 1980’s family sitcom, we are introduced to Eli, played by Stephen Chueka, a man trying to impress his fiancé’s father.
As Eli tries to make the very best impression, his sister Jo, played by Sydney Grant, accidentally leaves her brownies out where June and Ward Cleaver inspired parents Connie and Charles, played by Katie Gast and Joe Graham, eat them. But surprise, these are not just any regular brownies; these are ‘special’ brownies. Hilarity ensues as Connie and Charles make Eli’s life more difficult, now forced to babysit baked parents and set the night to impress the father of his future bride.
