‘You Can’t Take it With You’ is side-splitting hit at Monticello High School

Director Jennifer Romano’s cast brings zany characters of Moss/Kaufman Pulitzer-Winning play to life

By RICHARD A. ROSS

MONTICELLO, NY—Ask people about their families and many will acknowledge some eccentricities that exist in one or more of their relatives. But in terms of its collective oddity, few families could ever compare with the Vanderhof/Sycamore clan zanily portrayed in the 1937 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, ‘You Can’t Take it With You,” penned by Moss Hart and George Kaufman. The Broadway hit inspired the Academy Award-winning film of 1938 by the same title.

Using only the script from the original drama and steering clear of the character adaptations found in the movie, Monticello director Jennifer Romano allowed her talented cast to evince their own versions of the daffy characters. What emerged was a fresh and side-splitting production that had audiences on December 14 and 15 at the high school rolling in the aisles.

The audience was soon privy to the antics of snake-hunting, tax-evading Grandpa Martin Vanderhof, played musingly by Frank Sego; his steamy-novel-writing daughter Penelope Vanderhof Sycamore (Jennifer Shickle); her fireworks-inventing husband George (Zach Gibson); their aspiring ballet-dancing daughter Essie (Autumn Eggleton); and her amateur publicist of a husband, Ed (Dominic Carmeci); and brother Donald (Tyler Wuerthner)

Flustered and embarrassed by her dysfunctional family, Alice (Rebecca Perlman), seemingly the only normal character, introduces her newfound boyfriend Tony Kirby (Erik Mayberg) to her family circus and its peripheral array of ancillary characters including Mr. DePinna (Jonathan Bryant), Boris Kalenkhov (Daniel Cunningham), maid Rheba (Marina Lombardi) and the overly-imbibed Gay Wellington (Rachel Zager).

The plot thickens with the arrival of tax investigator Henderson (Robert Kersthner) and later even more uproariously with the untimely visit of Tony’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Kirby, stodgily played by Charles Marinaro and Juliana D’Abbraccio.

By play’s end, Russian Countess Olga (Heather Zott) and arresting officers (played by Daryl Gandy, Spencer Jacobsen and Andrew Shore) add more wrinkles to the already improbable events.

Romano’s direction, which a year ago yielded a credible production of Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible,” and the smash hit rendering of “Grease,” was ably supported by assistants Dana Coney and Kelly Pfeister. The show’s producer, the unflappable Kevin Dirth, credited the fine work of set design to newcomers Tim Buckley and Dan Svarczkoph. Ann Carmeci did the costumes and numerous others contributed materials and help to bring the show to life.

Prop managers Liza MacEntee and Amy Nagoda made sure that everything was right at hand for the bevy of fine actors that schooled the audience on what real comedy is supposed to look like.

Kudos to Romano, Dirth, cast and crew for setting a new standard in high school entertainment.

Those who missed the delightful production will get a chance to see Liberty High School’s rendering of the timeless laugh fest on January 11 and 12 in the David E. Panebaker Auditorium at Liberty High School. Performances will be staged at 7:00 p.m.

Visit riverreporter.com or riverreportersports.com (click on photos) to see an album of photos from the Monticello production of the play.