Going out for a Neil Simon farce
Guilderland Players let Rumors fly in a "two-hour marathon of spontaneity"



GUILDERLAND — Prevarication. We all lie a little, bend the truth, fill in the gaps, exaggerate, cover up — especially in social situations.

Neil Simon stretches that natural human tendency to absurd extremes in his 1988 play, Rumors, and the cast in the current Guilderland High School production follows his lead right out the door.

A multitude of doors, in fact. Characters enter and exit at a dizzying pace. Timing is everything and the 10 players had it down pat at a rehearsal this week as they prepared for Friday’s opening night.

When it wasn’t right, they went over it until it clicked. At one point, as a door swung open, two characters inadvertently collided. The director warned them against smirks and they tried again.

This time, the actress had her foot surreptitiously against the door, so she could fake a dramatic fall forward as it was pushed open behind her, landing on the couch.

The actors sashayed with aplomb around classmates who were busy putting finishing touches on the set — an upper-middle-class home in the suburbs of New York City.
Veteran director Andy Maycock, an English teacher at the high school, chose the play, he said, because he wanted a balance of male and female players and because producing comedy is "more fun" than drama. Referring to the Guilderland Players’ recent production of All My Sons, Maycock said, "It’s exhausting emotionally to get at the depth and darkness."
He went on about the current comedy, "This is more physically exhausting. With drama, your heart hurts. With this, your sides hurt, from laughing. For your five-dollar ticket, you see 10 kids really go at it."

The play centers on a couple — Charley and Myra Brock — who never appear on stage. The Brocks are celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary and have invited their friends to a party at their house.
"As the curtain rises, the first guests are frantic. Myra is missing and Charley apparently shot himself through the earlobe. He’s taken Valium and is out cold," said Maycock.
Charley is the deputy mayor of New York and the guests are afraid that it may look bad if he tried to kill himself. "As the next couple arrives, they make up a story. Eventually, there are four couples, all in different stages of knowledge," said Maycock.
"This is all too hard to follow. I need a bookmark in my head," says one of the party guests. The viewers’ grip on reality is eventually loosened — finding the truth becomes irrelevant midst the rumors — and the audience just goes along for the convoluted ride.

One couple arrives after a car accident and the husband, Lenny, maintains a perpetually tipped head, presumably the result of whiplash.

Another couple includes a wife, Cookie, who has such chronic back pain that, at one point, she crawls matter-of-factly across the stage in her hot-pink satin party dress.

A third couple, a would-be politician with a perpetually complaining wife who seeks comfort in a quartz crystal, bicker constantly.
"They have the kind of circular arguments we’ve all had or seen," said Maycock. "We laugh at this play because it’s silly and we can see ourselves in the characters."
When the police, aware of the gunshot, arrive in the second act, one of the guests, Lenny, pretends to be Charley. "He has a three-page monologue. His story is so outlandish that the police go merrily on their way," said Maycock.

Ensemble acting

In the midst of auditions, Maycock told the students seeking parts that what would separate those who were cast from those who were not was the level of energy.
"None of these characters are calm," said the director. "It’s a two-hour marathon of spontaneity. They have to constantly be on."

Energy, indeed. The cast rolls off the stage during a break at rehearsal between acts; the players talk in a kind of on-stage high about the wonders of working with Maycock — they’ve given him a pet name, Mack — and of becoming close friends across the usual class and clique lines.

They also talk with intelligence about how they play their roles and why they like — make that love — being on stage.

Molly Clancy, a junior who plays to high-pitched perfection the bitchy wife of a politician, says she had trouble with the role at first but now finds it fun.
"We sound like some TV couple from hell," her character comments as she goes on to act just like a sitcom character.
Her husband is running for state, not national office, and she rubs it in: "Don’t make it sound like we’re going to Washington, because we’re going to Albany — 23-degree-below-zero-in-winter Albany."
Keegan Falotico, also a junior, describes playing the politician: "I act all proper around people. I’m always trying to keep my cool and then I lose it."
Falotico started acting in the first grade and his dream is to play on Broadway some day. "The coolest thing is to become a character," he says.
Wearing a three-piece suit accented with a red-white-and-blue striped neck tie, Falotico goes on, "You put on their clothes, and you learn their lines, and you’re not you anymore, you’re the character."

Zach Tolmie, a senior who has played many roles at Guilderland, plays Ken, a guest who had a gun go off near his ear, leaving him deaf for much of the play.

He talks loudly and inappropriately, delivering some of the broadest humor in the play.
"I hear you have a cold," one of the guests says to him. "You think I look old!" shouts Tolmie with a straight face.
"I think he’s gone dotty," says Clancy, in character.
"Yes, a hot toddy would be nice!" shouts Tolmie in return.
Asked what it’s like to get a laugh with every line, Tolmie shrugs and says, "Every other line in the play is a funny line...People ask, ‘Who’s the main character"’ There is none."

Brianna Barbarotto, who plays Chris, Ken’s wife, says the cast performed for teachers and friends to get a sense of the timing with an audience laughing.
Maycock describes Barbarotto’s character as "crazed" and says of the actress, "She’s a battery with personality....She comes in with complete manic energy. It’s like new every time.

Seth Schwartzbach, a senior, plays Ernie, an analyst who is mistaken by one guest for a butler. He talks about the fast pace of Rumors, comparing it to the comedy the Guilderland Players put on last year, Arsenic and Old Lace.
"Last year’s was fast but this year’s is much faster," he says.

The cast recalls how, when a line is missed in rehearsal, a whole page is sometimes skipped.

Carina Engelberg plays Ernie’s wife, Cookie, the woman who suffers from bouts of back pain, which Engelberg manages to make funny.
"It’s like a wave hits her," said Maycock, describing Engelberg’s portrayal. "As she sits, her knees go out of whack. She makes funny noises...."
"You completely have to step out of yourself," says Engelberg. But then she allows, "There’s a little bit of each of our characters in us."
Barbarotto indicates that Jen Meglino is, in some ways, like her character, Claire — a character Maycock described as "a complete ditz, a total airhead."
Meglino laughs and nods in agreement. "I’m not saying I’m stupid," she says. "I’m slow on the pick-up."
She describes getting one of her lines and reports, "Everyone will say, ‘Dude, we got that two weeks ago.’"

Claire’s husband, Lenny, is played by David Alliger, a junior.
"He’s a wonderfully sweet guy," says Maycock of the actor, "and he has to be sarcastic, jaded, bitter."
Alliger delivers the three-page monologue that crowns the play. "That’s my favorite part," said Alliger. "I get to run around and be crazy."
"He’s so sarcastic," chimes in Barbarotto.
"Dave is not a sarcastic person," adds Clancy.

The cast is rounded out by the two police officers — played by Brooke Kolcow and Stephanie Nania.

Cast members tease Kolcow about having a man’s part re-written for her two years running.
Nania, a sophomore, "has the smallest part in the show but does a lot with it," said Maycock. During rehearsals, he said, "She is always the voice of reason"When things fall apart, she's a rock."
The players revel in each other’s company as they discuss the show. "We’re all so close...we’re emotionally connected," says Clancy.
"We’re all from different grades and different places," adds Meglino.
"It’s a melting pot," agrees Clancy.

Their inclusiveness spreads to the audience they plan to entertain.

The players say Rumors is a show everyone can relate to.
"Everyone can be completely carefree," says Engelberg.
"You will laugh. You will see yourself," says Clancy.
"You can’t be half-way," says Barbarotto. "Little kids will laugh at us falling all over the place. The adults will get the jokes."

Brooke Kolcow sums it up well, describing Rumors as "a play people can go to, to release their own stress by seeing the stress of others."

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Neil Simon’s Rumors comes to the Guilderland High School stage on Friday, Nov. 3, and Saturday, Nov. 4, at 7 p.m. Tickets for both performances will be sold for $5 at the door.