White Plains CitizeNetReporter - Like Shakespeare? Shaw? Brush Up Your Stoppard! <I>The Real Thing</I> Premiers

WPCNR WHITE PLAINS VARIETY. By John F. Bailey. At The Rochambeau. March 3, 2003: “If you like Shakespeare, if you like Shaw, you’re going to like Stoppard,” says Producer Joan Charischak, of the Fort Hill Players, “he plays so many word games. It’s a comedy of language.” WPCNR’s Mr. Broadway dropped by to meet the White Plains theatre troupe rehearsing Saturday for their Friday opening of Tom Stoppard’s I>The Real Thing at The Rochambeau School Andrew L. Morzello Auditorium, 228 Fischer Avenue.

THE REAL THING IN REHEARSAL finds Stanley Wexler, left, Bernadette McComish, center, taking direction from Carin Zakes on the set. The Real Thing will run for the next three weekends, Fridays, March 7, 14, and 21 with curtains at 8, with Saturday performances on March 8, 15, and 22 with matinee and evening showtimes at 2 and 8. Admission is $14, $12 for seniors and high school students, $6 for children. For tickets call 421-0008.
Photo by WPCNR StageCam

Charischak said the actors and actresses in the 7-person cast are “having a lot of fun with it. They love the English accents. It is an intellectual comedy, a love affair with words.”

She said there are numerous scene changes in the play which takes place in the 1980s in London with action shifts between various apartment venues. When WPCNR dropped in, the elegant set featuring intriguing furniture and portraits already appeared to be creating a world we’d like to step into. Charischak said the original Tony Winning play had its various apartments installed on a turntable. The Fort Hill Players troupe of 27 of which only 7 are acting, will transform the traditional set in blackout.

THE DIRECTOR TALKS ABOUT THE REAL THING: Carin Zakes, Director, is directing her first show with the Fort Hill Players. She said last week’s complete sound check and actor run-through was very good, and she felt very encouraged about how the show was developing. Asked why people should come and see this play, Zakes said, “If you want to be reminded of those messy bits of life and the passion in life, come to see this play.”
Photo by WPCNR StageCam

Ms.Zakes said the show was about a writer who writes a play about adultery, then commits it himself. “It shifts back and forth between the play he’s creating and his real life.”

Zakes brought the cast together in small groups to coach them to create the dynamics needed between the characters, in January before going to full scenes. The cast has been rehearsing since the beginning of January, but only on full scenes for a month. “The play shifts from scenes in a play to real life, and the audience is left with the question, so what is the real thing?,” Zake said. “The writing is very good. It’s very challenging. Witty, intellectual and insightful. A lot (of the effect) depends on how the dialogue is delivered. It’s about relationships and love. The cast is really working hard to find the truth in the relationships. You need a gin and tonic after this play.”

Dirk Marks, veteran of Harmony on the Sea of last year, and a diplomat for the Dutch mission to the United Nations in real world time, plays Max. His wife leaves him in the first act. He said, “It’s such a cleverly written show. A lot of things are repeating themselves throughout the show. There’s a lot of psychology going on in this play. It’s extremely funny. It’s clever.”

Lorna Whittemore, an advertising space salesperson for The Record-Review, said that getting her character, the female lead, Annie, “has been a roller coaster ride of a process. She’s a very complex woman, and I had problems with my justifying her behavior, and finding myself unable to justify her behavior.”

Stanley Wexler, an investment banker in real life, former professional opera singer in San Francisco, plays the playwright, Henry. The soliloquies his character gives in which he introspects about his life and his play are a challenge, Wexler said,

“He has some long speeches that are really instructive to do to hold and keep the audience’s attention. The writing is spectacular,” Wexler enthused, “You can learn from Tom Stoppard, every time you do it. He’s (Henry) a pompous intellectual guy. He likes to hear himself talk.”

“I play a catty bitch,and that’s a stretch for me” says self styled domestic goddess, Syl Farrell, of Mahopac, who has some of the funniest lines in the play in the role of a wife who decides to leave her husband. Whittemore says she enjoys comic roles: “I come in and have fun. It’s a lesser role but it’s fun for me but the person’s awful. I throw my zingers and go home.”

Bernadette McComish, an interior lighting designer and sales representative with Balinger Lighting, plays Charlotte, the daughter of the playwright: “I play an 80s chick who is running away with a man her father hasn’t met. In many ways she is a lot like him (her father), and he understands that. The play holds up after twenty years.”

Ms. McComish says she love the theatre, but could not do it professionally, and this is an outlet for her love for theatre. She also writes fiction, and finds her acting helps her writing.

The actors and actresses have been rehearsing six times a week for the last month, are all very enthusiastic about the play.

THE SET AWAITS: Stan Wexler says, “The fun of the play is in listening to the language, it explores questions about love, life and relationships that make up things. I hope they like us.”
Photo by WPCNR StageCam

Note: Correction: In the first edition of this article, WPCNR misidentified several roles. Lorna Whittemore is playing Annie. Syl Farrell plays the catty lady, and Bernedette McComish plays the daughter. WPCNR apologizes for the misunderstanding.


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