Students in Wildcat Theatre filled the Performing Arts Centre with laughter during their production of Lewis Black’s One Slight Hitch on June 12 to 14.
“I think it went really well. I’m really proud of them,” said student director Meghan LaRose. The first show was well-attended, with a responsive audience and a standing ovation.
“I was really happy that all of them came out,” LaRose said.
In the play, Courtney (Maggie MacKenzie) is getting married at her parents’ (Shea Heatherington as Delia and Morgan Sorensen as Doc) house to Harper (Nathan Spencer), a nice, dependable man. The wedding goes wrong with the sudden appearance of her irresponsible ex-boyfriend, Ryan (Justin Fleischhacker), and Courtney’s sisters PB (Shannon Hammond) and Melanie (Amy Stratulate) try to save the day and stir things up, respectively. Eventually Courtney realizes that she doesn’t want to get married and calls everything off.
The standouts here are Sorensen and Heatherington as Courtney’s parents. Delia spends much of the play irate about something or other, and Heatherington perfectly captured Delia’s gradual loss of patience and how she is wound as tightly as possible, while still conveying her inner warmth and love for her children when she comforts Courtney and later when she gives an impressive monologue to her listening daughters. She was also hilarious in her brief scene as a drug-addled housewife. Sorensen took one for the team and shaved part of his head to better portray a middle-aged man, and is great as the only sane man in an increasingly out of control situation.
Spencer lends depth to someone who doesn’t have much time on stage to be a really developed character, and is genuine as first a man who bonds with his fiancée’s ex, and then as someone who wants to be angry and mean when she calls off the wedding, but can’t be. Fleischhacker is remarkably comfortable onstage while portraying a character who is in his underwear most of the time, and plays Ryan kind of like a golden retriever: a bit dumb, but charming and friendly. MacKenzie as Courtney spends much of the play looking morose, but has good chemistry in her scenes with everyone, especially Fleischhacker and Stratulate and Hammond as her sisters.
Hammond’s best moments as PB were the dancing interludes to ‘80s classics like Bette Davis Eyes, but is also believable as someone, like her father, who just observes and tries to fix the chaos around her. Stratulate has come a long way from her portrayal as innocent nice girl Tiffany in “Back to the ‘80s” and here is really fun to watch as the perpetually intoxicated and mischievous Melanie.
Friday was supposed to be a dinner theatre, but it was cancelled out of respect for Andrew Nibourg, who was a big part of the foods club that would have provided the dinner. The costs were refunded.