The lecture hall, full of excited, intrigued parents and high schoolers, falls silent as the lights dim. This is always the scene when Jesuit Theatre Productions come around. In the past, these productions have managed to please hundreds of Jesuit students, faculty, and parents, while also drawing plenty more visitors from Ursuline, Hockaday, and plenty of schools in the area. In accordance with the past, Jesuit’s 2012 Spring Production, “Lend Me a Tenor,” did not disappoint.
A comedy that takes place in 1934 Cleveland, Ohio, and delves into the chaos of opera, this production had two different casts and four different showings, April 20th, 21st, 26th, and 27th. The protagonist of the play, Max, was portrayed by sophomore Aaron Stonecipher ’14 and Junior Colin Traver ’13 as a fidgety, nervous man, who works at the opera for his girlfriend’s father, Mr. Saunders. Played by Seniors Eric Nunez-Lafontaine ’12 and Frankie Guidone ’12, Saunders constantly “gives Max hell,” always haughtily reprimanding him for his clumsiness and incessant failure.
In the play, Max, the clumsy assistant, must babysit the world renowned, womanizing, Italian opera star, Tito Merelli, who visits the Cleveland opera house as a celebrity guest and who is played by Junior Eric Bradley ’13 and Sophomore Thomas Spottiswood ’14. As the plot progresses, Tito gets very sick, and Saunders, scared that he will not be able to perform, urges him to take some medicine. After Tito refuses, however, Max, hoping to save the day, slips some medicine into his wine.
Little does he know that Tito’s wife, Maria, portrayed by Ursuline students Natalia Gonzalez ’13 and Adrian Collins ’14,
has already forced him to take his medicine. Furthermore, Max also fails to realize that his girlfriend, Maggie Saunders, played by Ursuline’s McKenna Wierman ’13 and Katie Frisbee ’14, runs into Tito’s suspicious wife, after sneaking in to his room to try to meet him. Maria, assuming that Maggie is one of Tito’s mistresses, walks out on her husband, leaving an angry goodbye note for him. Full of sadness, Tito reads the letter and mourns his loss. Finally, however, Max manages to get the famous opera singer in bed, so that he can rest well for his performance the next day.
The next morning, when Max tries to wake up Tito to no avail, the hysterical assistant assumes the worst, that Tito killed himself in sorrow. When Saunders discovers this seeming tragedy, he urges Max, who dreams of singing in the opera, to dress up as Tito and take his place. Nervous and anxious, Max takes his place and successfully woos the audience. When he returns to the hotel as Tito, many suitors, including Maggie, and two new characters, Julia, played by Hockaday student Mary Frances Harris and Ursuline’s Grace Cunningham ’14, and Diana, played by Ursuline juniors Gabi Stewart ’13 and Anna Grace Nwosu ‘13, try to seduce him.
Max, however, has bigger problems on his hands; on returning, he finds that Tito’s body is no longer in the hotel room and realizes that Tito was never dead. What ensues is a chain reaction of “mistaken identity, ludicrous plot twists, double entendres, and incessant entrances and exits on and offstage.
A great example of Broadway-style “farcical comedy,” Lend Me a Tenor is one of the more paradisial comedies that Jesuit Theatre has embarked on in the past few years. When asked about this shift towards “laugh-out-loud” comedy, Colin Traver, one of the two leads, explained that “farcical comedy… is all about externalization. That’s a main component of it.” For Traver, difficulty in this comedy emerged from gauging the proper degree of comedy: “It was difficult, especially because I am very expressive. If I went over the top, it was very distracting, and sometimes if it was not extreme enough, it wasn’t very entertaining, so it was kind of hard to strike that balance.” Despite this difficulty and this shift away from drama, Colin and the rest of the cast were able to fully embrace the comedic spirit, in what turned out to be a huge hit among audiences.
Jesuit junior Marshall Huggins ’13 noted how “elaborate and well-timed the humor was,” while Ursuline junior Ryann
Helsen ’13 highlighted the “energy and excitement of the production,” compared to past, less whimsical productions.
Many of the actors and actresses also noticed this increased comedic energy relative to prior theater performances. Natalia Gonzalez, for instance, noted that “Lend Me a Tenor… was different because there was so much physical comedy. There were so many huge characters, so all the characters had to have very specific traits and specific actions that kind of defined them onstage.” Eric Nunez-Lafontaine also noticed this “big change,” but emphasized that his fellow cast mates and theater director “Mr. David Myers helped with the transition.” According to him, “It was some of the best fun” he has “ever had as a Jesuit student.”
The excitement and energy surrounding “Lend Me a Tenor,” is unparalleled in the last few years of Jesuit Theatre and is sure to become a recurring theme and goal of Mr. Myers and the rest of the Jesuit Theatre Department.
