Arts & Culture | Theater | West Haven | West Haven High School
Patch Bowen Photos.
“Have you seen a comically large fork anywhere?” Nina Hodgins asked. “Please—it was around here somewhere!”
Hodgins, trapped in a one-size-too-large, deep burgundy bellhop uniform, was a little breathless between acts. The quest to find the fork continued.
That scene played out backstage last month, as students at West Haven High School (WHHS) prepared to mount Ken Ludwig’s comedy Lend Me A Tenor as their fall play. Directed by WHHS fine arts director Tracy Stratton, the production became a testament to the community students have built through the school’s theater program, which Stratton runs on a shoestring budget pulled mostly from out-of-pocket funds.
“It’s a farce: it’s difficult to get kids to understand that slapstick comedy, and they totally did,” Stratton said in a recent interview with the Arts Paper, as students prepared for a dress rehearsal. “We had two amazing understudies that stepped in when they needed to …. we had such a great, cohesive cast.”
First performed in 1986, Lend Me A Tenor tells the story of operatic phenom Tito Merelli or “Il Stupendo” (Devont’e Campbell), who passes out before a performance of Othello at the Cleveland Grand Opera Company because he has taken one too many tranquilizers (this is due to a miscommunication of multiple proportions, setting the stage for a physical, wonkily timed Noises Off kind of comedy).
He’s too incapacitated to perform: some characters even worry that he’s dead. Predictably, the opera company’s manager (Chase Golde as Saunders) freaks out, and enlists his colleague Max (Eddy Santiago) to impersonate Merelli. Max—somewhat astonishingly—pulls it off, but Merelli wakes up and puts on the same costume. Cue chaos and confusion, from two befuddled paramours (Carmella Ruiz as Maria and Paige Kenny as Diana) to an audience that doesn’t realize they have two Othellos.
On a recent Tuesday afternoon, that comedy sprang to life during a dress rehearsal, as students ran through sound checks, costume prep and last-minute prop placement and preparation of the stage for performance. A few searched for misplaced costume pieces. Hodgins, who played Mrs. Peacock in Clue last spring, kept looking backstage for a fork. Stratton, who is lovingly firm, gave a warning before places. Then a few minutes later, it was time.
“Places!” she called, walking sternly to the stage and scattering the excitable group of crew and actors. “Theres a sweatshirt on the stage! There are crew members sitting in some weird hotel room! This is not hustle people!”
That’s part of how she sees the program: she gives the students space to enjoy themselves and let off steam, and often they channel it into the minutiae of pulling off a theatrical production. The result is sharp concentration when it's go time: at places, there wasn’t a single student not ready and in place when it was time to be serious.
As rehearsal began, students showed off how layered, fun and nuanced even a slapstick comedy can be. Senior and junior co-stars Santiago and Trenchard, playing Max and Maggie respectively, jumped into their characters’ chemistry, teasing out subtext and comedic timing that existed between their lines. Campbell mined the character for humor. Golde jumped in as Saunders and kept the momentum going.
“The cast of kids that I have, I wouldn’t have been able to do the show without them, Stratton said. The love goes both ways: multiple students recalled fundraising for the production all year. Many of them are already excited to present The Addams Family next year.
She’s confident expecting many of her kids to return to the stage again. “Oh, every single one of them, plus more!” she said. “I mean the show will probably have about 30 people in it, not to mention 25 crew members.”