Louis Arias
In Motion Staff Writer
Oct. 26 was opening night for Neil Simon’s “Fools” at the Daytona Beach News-Journal’s Gillespy Theater. Director Samantha Stern did an excellent job moving the production along at a fast pace, as is customary with farces. The colorful stage was unpretentious yet functional and the all-student cast delivered well-rehearsed professional performances.
Simon’s old world theatrical concoction is set in the late 19th Century in a tiny remote Ukrainian village where everyone lives under a sorcerer’s curse that prevents them from learning. Villagers go through life as bumbling morons who cannot feel love either. There is a great deal that does not make sense in this fable for adults so, it is best to check reality in at the door for an hour and 50 minutes, sit back, relax and enjoy the barrage of vaudeville-reminiscent laughs.
To the cursed village arrives Leon Tolchinski, a young teacher who learns that he only has 24 hours to educate Sophia, the lovely but dumb daughter of the town doctor, or he will suffer the same fate as everyone else. Leon falls in love with her but she can’t reciprocate. The only other way out is for Sophia and the village is to marry the Count whose family doomed the village in the first place.
Nathan Pessah and Jessica James endear themselves to the audience as a love-struck teacher and his dumb, charming and pretty pupil. An interesting exchange between them occurs in the second act, when Sophia teaches Leon something about emotional intelligence. The supporting cast did an excellent job, but Amanda Ortega excelled in her role as Lenya Zubritsky, the doctor’s wife.
What probably makes the play work is that the villages’ inhabitants may be dumber than dirt, but not only do they have personality… they also have heart. While the audience laughs at their stupidity, it secretly roots for them. The play’s ending seems a little forced, but time flies when the audience has fun. At the end of the day, “Fools” is an evening well spent.