Preview: Neil Simon's Fools at Apple Hill Playhouse (2001)
Neil Simon's Fools was the August production of Apple Hill Playhouse's 2001 adult mainstage season. In this archived preview from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the director and cast talk about playing Simon's cursed village of simpletons as lovable people rather than cartoons.
By Allison Bourg TRIBUNE-REVIEW
'Fools'
8 p.m. today, Saturday, Thursday and Aug. 18 and 23 through 25; 2 p.m. Wednesday.
$8 tonight. All other shows: $12 and $16; $10.50 and $13.50 for senior citizens; $9.50 and $12 for students; $6 and $8 for children.
Apple Hill Playhouse, Delmont.
Get Directions Apple Hill Playhouse
To err is human, a popular adage proclaims. Everybody makes mistakes, reassures another cliche. But for a village cursed with chronic stupidity, error doesn't just happen every now and then. Rather, it's a way of life.
This curse of foolishness is the basis for Neil Simon's comedy "Fools," now playing at Apple Hill Playhouse, Delmont.
"'Fools' is about a town in Russia struck stupid," the show's director Brad Dell says. "But above all, this is a play about love."
Schoolteacher Leon Tolchinsky, played by Bob Capanna of Latrobe, arrives in town to take a job teaching one of the townspeople's daughters. Sophia, portrayed by Katie Kerr of Greensburg, is trapped under the stupidity curse, along with the rest of the village.
Leon soon falls in love with the young girl and becomes determined to break the spell. However, he has only 24 hours to do so, or else he, too, will be cursed with chronic brain freeze.
"Love is the only thing that can break the curse," Dell says. "That's the overriding theme of the play."
Capanna, who calls the play one big joke that plays for 90 minutes, will tackle his first lead role as the lovestruck Leon.
"For once, I'm playing the hero, instead of the character who provides comic relief," Capanna says. "I've always played the fool, and now I'm in a play called "Fools" and I play the only normal person."
Kerr, an Apple Hill veteran, describes her character as one who simply wants to love and to be loved in return.
"She's a very good-hearted, innocent idiot," she says of Sophia.
Dell, who works primarily in children's theater, finds that he likes appealing to young and old audiences with antics such as those in "Fools." The physical humor, he says, makes the play feel like a youth's comedy for adults.
The challenge, he says, is to humanize the characters in comedies.
"These are people suffering from an affliction," Dell says.
Kerr agrees, noting that it was important that the characters not come across as cartoonish.
"They're lovable, honest people," she says. "We didn't want them to be buffoons."