For the past eight weeks or so the Clarkston Village Players have been hard at work preparing for their latest production, entitled ‘Bright Ideas.? As of last Thurs Oct. 4, they opened the doors for the general public to sit and enjoy the dark-comedy laughs.
‘Bright Ideas,? written by Eric Coble, takes you into a world of two loving parents Joshua and Genevra Bradley (played by Dean Vanderkolk and Wendy Hedstrom) who want nothing but the best for their little 3-year-old son, Mac. That includes the best prestigious pre-school, which is to set little Mac’s track for life starting at age 4.
As the pressure increases for loving parents to get their son into Bright Ideas, Genevra and Josh seek extreme measures, even if it means giving ‘poison pesto? to kill off a snobbish single mother (played by Melissa Miller Farr), so that Mac will be eligible for bright ideas. Other cast members include Brian Taylor and Amy Seaman.
Farr, Taylor, and Seaman all got to play multiple character roles.
I thought the cast did a very good job with each of their roles/ multi-personalities, for Director Rikki Schwartz, this was her favorite thing about directing this play.
‘It was fun to see them come up with different idiosyncrasies for each character so they could be distinctly different from each other. Find the humor in each one, find the balance between being over the top and realistic, really, really fun in that regard,? she said.
Schwartz wasn’t sure if there was a message or not to the play.
‘It’s a satire probably on how serious we take pre-school in this day and age and how competitive it’s become. I don’t know if it has a message so much as it is satirical.?
However, I would say even though it was greatly satirical, I do think the play portrays a message of who we are as people, that we will go to great lengths and measures for what we want. We are shown through the lives of Josh and Genevra how a family can fall apart as they strive to be something they are not and how a world of competition and prestige can change love into hatred, madness, and even insanity.
I enjoyed the message and the truth of life that I got out of the play; however, this is not a play for children because of strong language, suggested violence and sensual innuendos
Schwartz said she tries to direct at least one play a year, switching between dramas and comedies.
‘This one I know would be one of the more fun ones I ever directed and it was just plain fun.?
She also said she is excited for the outlook of this year’s plays
‘We have a great slate this year; I think we have one of the best slates we’ve ever had so I am very excited. It’s a broad, broad variety of really serious, really silly, really dramatic, and really comical. So it’s perfectly structured we have a lot of unusual plays that a lot of people have never heard of. We like to do plays that are unique and so people haven’t seen them already so we can introduce those plays to them it’s a really good slate this year.?
The last three showings for Bright Ideas are Thurs. Oct. 11 at 7:30 p.m. , and Fri. Oct 12 and Sat. Oct. 13 at 8 p.m.