Indiana University of Pennsylvania - Oak Yearbook / INSTANO Yearbook (Indiana, PA)

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( bnslupher I t-e Previous page: Top left Barwick. Ren- shaw, and Surtasky in The Birthday Party Botlom f r Caught In the act in A Flea In Her Ear Center A Flea In Her Far brightened evenings in November with a unique humor. This page: Top left: Surtasky, as McCann. contemplates life in The Birthday Parly Top Right: Kevin Rcnshaw as the mysterious gangster m The Birthday Parly Middle: Meg and Petey played by Avril Barwick and Bill Marlinak SotMm n i(. Goldberg tries to convince Petev to return to his old life ( hnslophcr ice Christopher ice siophcr l.cc Christopher Lee

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THEATER-BY-THE-GROVE: A Slice Of Entertainment In October, Theater-By- The-Grove presented The Birthday Party. a funny but somewhat confusing play which still proved enjoyable to the audience. The Birthday Party is just that: a party thrown for Stan- ley, played by Keith Edwards. But this is no ordinary birthday party. In fact, it ' s not even Stanley ' s birthday. The plot focuses on two men who mysteriously enter into Stanley ' s seemingly peaceful life as a permanent boarder at the residence of Petey and Meg, played by Bill Martinak and Avril Barwick. The identi- ty of the two men is never clearly established, but they appear to be part of a mob or- ganization. Goldberg, the lead- er, played by Kevin Renshaw, and his sidekick McCann (Da- vid Surtasky) have come to this seaside town in England to punish Petey for some past crime in the organization. They use the excuse of the birthday party to torture him in hopes of ultimately reverting him back to one ot them. The plot is as confusing as it sounds, but the play is typical of its author Harold Pinter. He focuses all of the action in one setting, the living room, con- centrating mainly on the char- acters of the house and on out- side force, Goldberg and McCann, who disrupt their lives. The stunning performances from every cast member dis- play the power of Pinter ' s writ- ing and kept the audience hyp- notized even when the plot seemed hard to follow. Avril Barwick was perfect as the de- lightfully nervous Meg, the concerned motherly type who seemed like she possessed a much more complicated per- sonality than she showed the world. Her vivaciousness was the exact opposite of her calm, level-headed husband. Ren- shaw and Surtasky also acted superbly, playing off of each other brilliantly while giving the audience glimpses of their hidden inner feelings. Their fast-paced conversations de- manded impeccable timing which was never missed. Although a Pinter play might be more suitable for a more experienced audience, even the average theater-goer was overwhelmed by the capti- vating performances of the cast. Raymonde has a flea in her ear. She thinks her husband, Vic- tor Emmanuel Chandebise is having an affair. So she and her best friend Lucienne set up a plot to catch him. Lucienne writes a letter to Victor, setting a trap for him to meet her at the Hotel Coq d ' Or. Victor mistakes the letter for someone else, and sends Romain Tour- nel in his place. Romain finds Raymonde at the hotel and thinks she wants to have an af- fair with him. In the meantime, Lucien- nes ' s Spanish husband, Carlos, thinks his wife is really having the affair because he knows that she really wrote the letter. This action and much more comes to a roaring climax at the hotel where it seems every cast member is running in and out of every room with every other cast member. Things get even further complicated, when Victor ' s twin appears as the the hotel busboy. A Flea In Her Ear, by Georges Feydeau, was per- formed by Theater-By-The- Grove in November. This bed- room comedy takes place in Paris in the early 1900s. The Chandebises, played by Nat- alie Wolf and Matt Giehl. are the center around which the rest of the comedy revolves. It is a play full of misunderstand- ings, mistaken identities, and split-second timings. These factors would seem to make the play a difficult one to per- form, but the cast does it perfectly. Edward Simpson ' s skillful directing enables the audience to understand and laugh through what could be a very complicated plot. - Dana Smith

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A Slice Of Entertainment Conti. The cast makes Simpson ' s job easy, as they carry out each scene with the utmost profes- sionalism. It is difficult to sin- gle out any one performance since every cast member was a vital part of the plot. Every performer had to be exception- al due to the liming involved and the nature of the dialogue and action. Special attention, however, must go to Matt Giehl. He not only played Chancbise. but he appeared at the hotel Coq d Or as Poche. Giehl ' s two characters played in scenes so close to each other that it seemed impossible for him to have time to change costumes, let alone shift to a totally different personality. A Flea in Her Ear was an entertaining and hilarious way to spend an evening. The laughter in the theater didn ' t stop during the play and proba- bl continued even aftcruards with thoughts of this funoush funny comedy. A tragedy in the form of a musical comedy. Although what most of us would consider comedv was not found fre- quently in theater-B -The Grove ' s production of Good from February 26-28 and March 3-7, there were some humorous moments. But the humor was in a very tragic sense, as the audience watched the life of John Hadler, played by Mathew Giehl, being taken over b) the Nazi part in Hi- tler ' s Germany. The show was based on Hai- der ' s thoughts and feelings as he gradualK became involved in the Nazi regime. We wit- nessed the demise of his mar- riage to Helen, convincingK portrayed by Lisa Campbell, and an affair with a young stu- dent named Anne, played b Natalie Wolf. These and other cast members gave great per- formances, including an espe- cially comedic performance by Hitler, played by Andrew Manuel. One of the interesting as- pects of the pla was the use of music of offset Haider ' s thoughts. When his marriage was failing and when he was having the affair, a backup band and a vocalist broke into a song which would amplify his feelings. But as Haider began to slip further away, there was one force that tried to bring him back to reality, his friend Mau- rice, portrayed by Ian Gal- lanar. As soon as Haider began to drift into his thoughts and the music, Maurice was always there to try to bring him out of it. Unfortunately, Maurice was a Jew and their strong friend- ship dwindled into the tyranny of the Nazis. Overall, the play seemed to move at a slower pace than the other TBTG performances this year, but the slow, calculated movement of the show seemed appropriate for the subject matter. The show provided an interesting character study and an opportunity to learn more about about Nazi Germans — not just what it did physicalK to others, but the mental ef- fects it had on those who were drawn b its power into the regime. If a night of simple, fun en- tertainment was what you needed to prepare for the last grueling weeks of the semester, Theater-By-The-Grove ' s Dames At Sea might have been just the ticket you were looking for. Dames offered no hidden meanings, no complex charac- terizations and no underlying morals. But it was just this lack of depth which makes the mu- sical so enjoyable. According to director Bar- bara Blackledge, the show was meant to be a playful parody of those lavish 1930 ' s musicals with swarms of chorus girls, glittering sets and costumes and glamorous stars. Indeed the plot resembled those of the majority of this genre of musi- cal: a small-town girl with big dreams goes to Broadway for her big break, falls in love, and eventually gets her chance at stardom. But these inten- tionally simple plots, designed to help alleviate the worries of the depression era, left room for the other ingredients of the show to shine through. The show ' s plot centers around the making of a musi- cal entitled, appropriately