Staging for Mame is more complex than previous shows
Published June 16, 2010
By Martin C. Barry • NEWSFIRST
Photo: Martin C. Barry
Eva Petris, playing Mame, is literally swept off her feet on the Laval Liberty High School stage.
Senior students taking dramatic arts at Laval Liberty High School excelled recently in an end-of-year stage tradition, when they performed the challenging hit broadway musical Mame. Produced by Laval Liberty's thriving theatre concentration program, it has become a custom at the school year’s end that the students mount an elaborate musical, in addition to the straight dramatic play they stage earlier in the year.
Memorable
Under the direction of Laval Liberty alumnus turned actress/director Stephanie Pitsiladis, the theatre concentration program’s productions have been becoming increasingly complex each year. Mame, which is based on the 1955 novel Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis, started out on Broadway as a stage comedy, but by 1966 had become a full-scale musical with elaborate and memorable song and dance sequences.
“This is our biggest production yet,” Pitsiladis said in an interview last week during intermission at the Friday night performance. “In terms of costumes, there’s almost 300. Every kid has about three to six costumes depending on whether they’re a lead or not. There are a lot costumes, a lot of props, a lot of set pieces. This is one of the most technically difficult shows that we’ve actually done here. Every show has its difficulties, but it seems like this one is difficult in every aspect.”
Strong performances
Eva Petris, playing Mame, got a chance to show off her exceptionally strong voice, while Stephanie Marinakos, playing the 10-year-old Patrick, did a tour-de-force passing herself off as a little boy. Kathleen Caissy as Agnes Gooch and Stephanie Segal as Vera Charles also gave strong performances in their lead roles.
According to Laval Liberty principal Eric Ruggi, the theatre concentration program has been drawing more and more students yearly. “The program keeps attracting more students because the quality of the production and performance is so high that students are attracted and want to be part of it,” he said. “It just keeps fueling the program’s growth.”
A captivating story
The storyline in Mame is captivating from the start. The life of eccentric Mame Dennis and her bohemian, intellectual friends is disrupted when her deceased brother's 10-year-old son, Patrick, is entrusted to her care. Rather than bow to convention, Mame introduces the boy to her free-wheeling lifestyle, instilling in him her favorite credo, "Life is a banquet, and most poor sons-of-bitches are starving to death."
Also in the story are Mame's personal secretary and nanny-in-law, Agnes Gooch, her "bosom buddy," Vera Charles (the baritone actress and world's greatest lush), and Dwight Babcock, the stuffy and officious executor of Patrick's father's estate. Mame loses her fortune in the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and tries her hand at a number of jobs, with disastrous results, but perseveres with good humor and an irrepressible sense of style.
A twisting plot
Mame eventually meets and marries Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside, a Southern aristocrat with a Georgia plantation. The trustees of Mame's late brother force Mame to send Patrick off to boarding school, and Mame and Beau travel the world on a long honeymoon that finally ends when Beau falls to his death while climbing a mountain.
Mame returns home a wealthy widow to discover that Patrick has become a snob engaged to an equally snobbish debutante, Gloria Upson. Mame brings Patrick to his senses just in time to introduce him to the woman she feels should become his wife. As the story ends, Mame is preparing to take Patrick's young son Peter to India with her usual flair.