for SL
The West High School Theater department is back in full swing. With the pandemic interrupting the familiar flow of our well-established and highly-regarded theater program, many arts enthusiasts at West have wondered how the school plays would return. Excitingly, Clue On Stage brought back the traditional longer form play to the performance season, with the same high quality performances delivered as always, but this time with a fresh new voice in the department: West’s own Louis Berebitsky as the director.
As soon as the play opens, the audience knows they are in for a wild ride. A news broadcaster (Sam Johnson) discusses 1950s era politics and societal commentary as a maid (Layla Al Ali) and a cook (Claire Meyer) prepare a dinner party. The charm of the play is immediately apparent; Johnson’s delivery is endlessly entertaining, as are the immersive details of the set. The warm lighting and burgundy and wood colors on stage provide a comforting vintage setting perfect for a dinner party on a rainy night.
As the dinner party begins, the real triumph of the play becomes clear: the casting. All six dinner party guests brought so much color to the show as each of the actors simultaneously embodied their character while adding their own flare through their line delivery and well-developed body language. They were all very physical performances that expertly balanced the self-oblivious humor and dramatic predicaments of the characters. With such iconic, silly characters, it would be very easy to turn them into one-sided cartoon characters, but aside from the occasional exaggerated accent or scream, each actor played into the fake seriousness of the story just the right amount, and really sold the stakes.
Iskander Rzaev stood out as the character who appears in the most scenes throughout the play as the butler, Wadsworth. As Tim Curry’s portrayal of the character in the 1985 Clue film demonstrated, Wadsworth’s morally ambiguous, debonair likeability is crucial to the success of the story, and Rzaev delivered a unique humor and big personality that supported and elevated the show.
The script itself is slightly slow in the beginning as we wait for the initial ball to roll, setting off the mystery, but the pace quickly picks up. As the plot develops, reveals get bigger and crazier and the pace quickens. The actors prove more than capable of keeping up, and the dialogue remains well-delivered, sounding like spontaneous conversation. They admirably keep their surprise fresh throughout the play despite having rehearsed it countless times. The blocking of the show also did a great job at this, as actors are constantly running around, switching places and running in and out of rooms.
All in all, West’s Clue On Stage was extremely well put together; the show went beyond just a collection of talent and moments to form a full experience, a world with an aesthetic and set of rules that we could easily understand and allow ourselves to become lost in. When putting on a play like Clue, it would be very easy to accidentally take the audience out of such a goofy story, but Berebitsky has done an excellent job at immersing the audience,only drawing us further in. The show perfectly showcases this group of actors’ biggest talents and has a captivating plotline. It was a superb choice for the play this year, giving us a chance, for the first time in a while, to experience one long story, with kooky characters, big plot twists, and high stakes.
The West High School Theater department is back in full swing. With the pandemic interrupting the familiar flow of our well-established and highly-regarded theater program, many arts enthusiasts at West have wondered how the school plays would return. Excitingly, Clue On Stage brought back the traditional longer form play to the performance season, with the same high quality performances delivered as always, but this time with a fresh new voice in the department: West’s own Louis Berebitsky as the director.
As soon as the play opens, the audience knows they are in for a wild ride. A news broadcaster (Sam Johnson) discusses 1950s era politics and societal commentary as a maid (Layla Al Ali) and a cook (Claire Meyer) prepare a dinner party. The charm of the play is immediately apparent; Johnson’s delivery is endlessly entertaining, as are the immersive details of the set. The warm lighting and burgundy and wood colors on stage provide a comforting vintage setting perfect for a dinner party on a rainy night.
As the dinner party begins, the real triumph of the play becomes clear: the casting. All six dinner party guests brought so much color to the show as each of the actors simultaneously embodied their character while adding their own flare through their line delivery and well-developed body language. They were all very physical performances that expertly balanced the self-oblivious humor and dramatic predicaments of the characters. With such iconic, silly characters, it would be very easy to turn them into one-sided cartoon characters, but aside from the occasional exaggerated accent or scream, each actor played into the fake seriousness of the story just the right amount, and really sold the stakes.
Iskander Rzaev stood out as the character who appears in the most scenes throughout the play as the butler, Wadsworth. As Tim Curry’s portrayal of the character in the 1985 Clue film demonstrated, Wadsworth’s morally ambiguous, debonair likeability is crucial to the success of the story, and Rzaev delivered a unique humor and big personality that supported and elevated the show.
The script itself is slightly slow in the beginning as we wait for the initial ball to roll, setting off the mystery, but the pace quickly picks up. As the plot develops, reveals get bigger and crazier and the pace quickens. The actors prove more than capable of keeping up, and the dialogue remains well-delivered, sounding like spontaneous conversation. They admirably keep their surprise fresh throughout the play despite having rehearsed it countless times. The blocking of the show also did a great job at this, as actors are constantly running around, switching places and running in and out of rooms.
All in all, West’s Clue On Stage was extremely well put together; the show went beyond just a collection of talent and moments to form a full experience, a world with an aesthetic and set of rules that we could easily understand and allow ourselves to become lost in. When putting on a play like Clue, it would be very easy to accidentally take the audience out of such a goofy story, but Berebitsky has done an excellent job at immersing the audience,only drawing us further in. The show perfectly showcases this group of actors’ biggest talents and has a captivating plotline. It was a superb choice for the play this year, giving us a chance, for the first time in a while, to experience one long story, with kooky characters, big plot twists, and high stakes.