{"id":4693,"date":"2017-11-07T21:13:47","date_gmt":"2017-11-08T01:13:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/?p=4693"},"modified":"2018-05-13T18:38:28","modified_gmt":"2018-05-13T22:38:28","slug":"an-evening-of-laughter-at-the-gillespy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/an-evening-of-laughter-at-the-gillespy\/","title":{"rendered":"An Evening of Laughter at the Gillespy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Louis Arias
\nIn Motion Staff Writer<\/p>\n

\"Sophia
Sophia (Jessica James) informs Leon (Nathan Pesah) the wonders of ignorance and how ignorance is truly bliss.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Oct. 26 was opening night for Neil Simon\u2019s \u201cFools\u201d at the Daytona Beach News-Journal\u2019s Gillespy Theater.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Simon\u2019s old world theatrical concoction is set in the late 19th<\/sup> Century in a tiny remote Ukrainian village where everyone lives under a sorcerer\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\"The
The towns people, (Tami Rohland, Moeshi Cearight, Gami Arroyo, Amanda Ortega, Devin McCoy, and Lorenz Smith) pray to their God that the union of Leon (Nathan Pesah) and Sophia (Jessica James) will break the curse over the town.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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. \u00a0Leon falls in love with her but she can\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

Nathan Pessah and Jessica James endear themselves to the audience as a love-struck teacher and his dumb, charming and pretty pupil.\u00a0 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\u2019s wife.<\/p>\n

What probably makes the play work is that the villages\u2019 inhabitants may be dumber than dirt, but not only do they have personality\u2026 they also have heart. While the audience laughs at their stupidity, it secretly roots for them. The play\u2019s ending seems a little forced, but time flies when the audience has fun.\u00a0 At the end of the day, \u201cFools\u201d is an evening well spent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Louis Arias In Motion Staff Writer Oct. 26 was opening night for Neil Simon\u2019s \u201cFools\u201d at the Daytona Beach News-Journal\u2019s Gillespy Theater.\u00a0 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 Continue reading An Evening of Laughter at the Gillespy<\/span>→<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4672,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4693"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4694,"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4693\/revisions\/4694"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}