Park Ave. Players please audience

Suzie Harrison

Laguna Beach High School’s award-winning Park Avenue Players will be

performing the Pulitzer Prize winning play “You Can’t Take It With

You” at the new $2.1-million Park Avenue Playhouse at Thurston Middle

School during the next couple of weeks.

Thurston Middle School students got a sneak preview on Nov. 7

where they responded with laughter and applause. The new theater,

which is being used while the Artists’ Theatre is being renovated, is

a theater-in-the-round and offers an intimate setting.

“It shows little, tiny scenes of the play,” said drama teacher

Mark Dressler. “It’s their first time in front of an audience. The

stage is very intimate, a few feet away.”

He explained that it is kind of a “Romeo and Juliet” with a wacko

family meeting with a prim and proper family. The lead roles are

being played by Christian Marriner as Martin Vanderhof, Marisa

Reisman as Alice his granddaughter, Drew Cuddy as Tony Kirby her

boyfriend, Laura Fryer as Tony’s mother and Becky Johnson as Penelope

Sycamore Alice’s mother.

During the performance the actors may be in the middle of a scene

when Dressler would yell freeze, making the characters stay in place

while he talked to he audience.

“Can you see what this story is really about,” Dressler said.

“What is the conflict? Let’s go forward two scenes to the Kirby

entrance.”

They went to the scene where Tony’s conservative and uptight

parents met with Alice’s eccentric, boisterous clan.

“You can see this family doesn’t match with the other family,”

Dressler said. “Can you see what problems that might cause between

Tony and Alice?”

The audience roared.

“My character, Mrs. Kirby is a very, very uptight,

sexually-frustrated matronly woman who is bored with her life, bored

with her husband and cares a lot about her image,” Laura said. “Me

and my husband are like, oh my, overwhelmed when meeting Alice’s

Family. We’re thinking it’s so weird, why has our son brought us

here?”

She said that deep down her character likes Alice, but is so

superficial and so into their standing in high society that they

can’t possibly imagine their son adulterating the family.

“The hardest part about playing her is she’s very inconsistent,

has many layers,” Laura said. “It’s hard to figure out when to break

out of the layers. It’s been really challenging but I really like

playing her.”

Drew talked about his character, explaining that he’s a young man

whose family owns a very prestigious business on Wall Street.

“I try and come off unhappy about life on Wall St. and fall in

love with Alice,” Drew said. “I bring my parents to meet her on the

wrong night and her family is really weird and my family is uppity,

uppity.”

Later in the play he said that the audience finds out that his

family never had time for him and he likes the attention and warmth a

real family provides.

Becky likes the role of Alice’s crazy mother.

“My character is one of those people in life that is never down,

never upset,” Becky said.

She’s eccentric as well making for an odd combination.

“I get sent a typewriter and see it as a sign that I’m supposed to

start writing plays,” Becky said. “I’m very artsy and paint even

though I am horrible -- I still love to paint nothing gets me down.”

Becky said that the family dynamic is absolutely crazy that

everyone in her family is so abstract and each member stands out in

their own weird way.

Marisa explained that her character Alice loves her crazy family

and understands that it’s not normal, but adores it anyway.

“It’s hard to have a relationship because the family is so

incredibly different,” Marisa said. “She’s normal compared to

everyone else. Alice contrasts and fits in too because she obviously

adores the family.”

The cast explained that the message is that “you can’t take it

with you,” to make life as enriched and happy as possible.

To learn what happens to the characters, go see “You Can’t Take It

With You” playing Nov. 15, 20, 21 and 22 at 7:30 p.m. with family

matinees on Nov. 15, 16, 22, and 23 at 2:30 p.m. Tickets are $8 for

students and $1 for adults and will be on sale before each

performance. The theater is located at Thurston Middle School located

at 2100 Park Ave. For information of tickets call (949) 497-7769.