DOWNEY - Ending with a bang for the 2010 school year, DHS's Drama Department pulled off a successful performance of Neil Simon's Fools for this past week.The play, directed by Lars Hansen, centers around a village called Kulyenchikov, in which the village people are caught under the impression that they are cursed. In the hopes to undo this "curse", an attempt to marry off Sophia, a daughter of Nikolai who is a resident of the village, to an outsider, Leon Steponovich Tolchinsky, is made. The character of Leon is given a 24-hour window to marry Sophia before he is also caught under the supposed "curse" that has turned all of the village people into fools, proving the title of the play to be an accurate one. "They could have broken the curse," says DHS student, Marisol Montano. "They were under the assumption that there was nothing they could do; they were helpless. I think it sends out a message that it's up to all of us to break a barrier so I liked the theme that the play held overall." The marriage between an outsider of the village to someone within the village is the only means to break this "curse" and Tolchinsky, played by Indiana Leon, is a teacher who is out on a quest to break it. By the end of the play, however, the audience and the village people of Kulenchikov learn that there had been no curse to begin with, only the imagination of one spreading from one village person to the other. Though the village has been shown to be fools after all, it is this essential aspect of the plot that makes the play a comedy, and an entertaining one at that. Having attended all plays since her freshmen year, senior Montano deemed the last play of her high school career to be a successful one. "All of the actors and actresses were pretty funny," says Montano. "I'm happy. It was a great play to end the year with. It was funny and it had a little bit of romance so it was really interesting, so it was a nice way to end." Having taken a semester to prepare for this performance, those who held a role in the play seem to hold an overall opinion of satisfaction. Senior Blake McCormack, a fellow actor who performed, agrees with Montano on the outcome of Fools. "I think it was a success," says McCormack. "A lot of people seemed to like it. I found it to be funny and I think it was a good way to end the school year. It was a lot of fun."

********** Published: June 17, 2010 - Volume 9 - Issue 9