By JESS PEREGOY

jep024@latech.edu

 

The School of Performing Arts’ production of “Such Stuff,” a play by Ruth Cantrell, was a flawless piece of comedic performances.

The cast featured Ashley Larsen, a senior speech major; Reece Roark, a senior speech major; Paul Jameson, a senior speech major; Rebecca Taylor, a graduate student of theatre; Rebecca Riisness, a sophomore speech major; Matthew Bass, a freshman speech major; Joshua Phillips, a senior speech major; and Tommy Beebe, a graduate student of theatre. All played eccentric characters, making the play a constant laugh.

Director Paul B. Crook created a play with controversial innuendos and hilarious one-liners setting the stage for an entertaining evening at the Stone Theatre.

The cast interacted with each other with perfection, keeping the play about a struggling Shakespearean play company entertaining in a way that left the audience wondering what would happen next.

The stage was not set elaborately, conveying the low-budget work the Shakespearean company produced and just how lost the characters were until Maude Williams, played by Larsen, stepped in and cleaned it up, literally.

The director of the company, Ashford Wadsworth, played by Roark, was seemingly irresponsible with his behavior, but kept his cool and found solutions for the company’s many obstacles.

The play’s conflict was caused by Williams and Wadsworth both signing contracts with sponsors and having to juggle the exclusivity clause to make it work and stay out of trouble.

The characters and the conflicts the characters faced kept the audience enthralled, wondering how each one would get out of the mess and make it work.

The play concluded with a view from backstage of the company’s performance of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” as the characters tried to perform the play without letting the sponsors know they had deals with both of the competing companies.

Throughout the play, each actor played his or her character without fault, making even the most minor of details worth a laugh.

The play was reminiscent of the debauchery of the film “Shakespeare in Love” and Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” where even though behind the scenes the play was falling apart, on stage the actors made it work as well as possible.

The actors all seamlessly translated their characters from the ditzy, promiscuous Britney K. Morehead, played by Riisness, to the self-obsessed actor Randall Hess, played by Jameson, all the way to the inexperienced actor Chris Townely, played by Bass.

By the play’s conclusion, another conflict on the horizon left the audience wondering just how the cast was going to solve this one, as if it were a sitcom and the show would pick up where it left off next week.