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Aubrey Hall

Hayley Hamblin (12) and Thomas Hudson (12) were the lovers in the play. Hamblin was noted for her over-the-top dramatic performance during the play.

Clapping and laughing boomed throughout the theater during the majority of the play. Then, after months of practicing, the fall play was finally finished on Sunday, November 8.

In a dialogue-heavy drama where very few scenes had more than a couple seconds of silence, actors, especially Morgan Baker (12), had their mouth stuffed full. If not words, then sometimes with bread.

While the acting was extravagant and well through-out, the story line was not as experienced as the actors within it.

After all of the work, some scenes did not seem as though they had been perfected. At the beginning of the play, the cast sang a part of a Taylor Swift song which seemed as if they had only just added the song in five minutes before the performance.

Other performances, however, Luke Ganger, not only the drum major in the band, but also a talented actor played a greedy old man. He adopted the persona flawlessly and was able to stay in character at every turn.

Baker shared his amazing acting skills when he played the lead, Truffaldino. His enthusiasm and charisma shined when he played the character. Although his acting was good, the chemistry between his character and Smeraldina (played by Emma Freyre [12]) was almost non-existent. The two had little to no chemistry on stage and it almost seemed forced.

The set for the play was extremely artistic and well thought-out. However, you could not tell that it was steampunk until after the show, when you walked up closer to the stage.

In many parts, it was difficult to tell what the actors were saying when they were speaking Italian. The pronunciation was also very forced and could have been touched on more.

Although the “spoiled daddy’s girl” act was pulled off very well by Hailey Hamblin (12), when she was throwing a temper tantrum and starting to scream, her screaming and crying was much louder than the other people on stage, and you couldn’t hear what they were talking about in most of the scene.

Another thing that was (somewhat) confusing was the gender roles and the sexist commentary. For example, in the beginning, Brighella talked to the audience about how if they were in a different time then she would be a guy dressed in drag, and pointed out that Beatrice was in drag.

When two of the maids, Nora and Pandora, would come on, they would say something along the lines of, “Power to women,” and then they would twist their hair and act like a stereotypical teenage girl, adding to the sexism.

Even though the play had some confusing parts, it was entertaining overall, and the audience could tell that the actors and crew worked very hard to make this happen.