Theatre Revives Melodrama
By Nicki Crisci
Opinion Editor
The theatre department’s opening theatre production “Caught in the Villain’s Web: or More Sinned Against than Sinning,” was an effective enactment of the melodrama, complete with the greasy villain twirling his mustache and laughing maniacally and the valiant, bumbling hero saving the helpless heroine.
The play first caught the audience’s attention with the piano player’s melancholy music before the curtain rose.
The pianist’s music was present throughout the play highlighting the happy, deceptive, heroic and treacherous moments in the performance.
After the musical beginning, the play takes on a more melodramatic role with the presence of the characters’ asides to the audience, the darkened stage and the edgy music.
From the play’s beginning, the audience is set up for drama when Chelsea Anderson’s character, Mrs. Regina Larkfield, tells Dr. Hugo Belch (Manny Casillas) that he must go along with the idea that she has a heart problem.
Lakefield’s “sickness” helps mold the rest of the play to her advantage until her secret is discovered. Moments of deception set the theme.
Each character, except the tragic hero Malvern Larkfield (Lucas Souder) and his childish sister Lona Larkfield (Crystal Vissers), has something to hide, and the play does not fail to expose exactly what it is that they are guilty of concealing. Everything is revealed as the plot moves along.
Mrs. Larkfield wants her son, Malvern, to marry the gold-digger, Nella Hargrave (Karla Carter).
He reluctantly agrees to the marriage because of his mother’s staged failing health, but soon after changes his mind, when his mother gets a new nurse—Felicity Fair (Kathryn Reinhardt).
Enter villain Cyril Bothingwell (Jeffrey Dalstrom), who looks for ways to work a situation to his monetary advantage, and as the saying goes, the plot thickens. We learn that the butler, Brockton (Alex Oberheide), was framed by Bothingwell for forgery and had to serve a five-year jail sentence.
The deception leads to much bitter resentment on Brockton’s part, but he is nonetheless threatened with losing his job if he fails to help Bothingwell. Bothingwell tells Brockton his plans and makes a hasty exit.
After working with his beloved stink weeds in the greenhouse, Malvern shortly returns and falls in love with Felicity. There is a twist to this romance, however.
Felicity, after hearing Malvern’s marriage proposal, confesses that she has a secret—she has no memory except of five years following her tragic train accident, and so she cannot marry him.
Malvern, being the noble hero, says that he will figure out who she is so they can marry.
During the lovers’ whole discussion, Bothingwell is hiding, listening to everything. After his plans to kill Mrs. Larkfield for her money go awry, he soon moves to a more cruel one. What that is, you will have to find out.
To give away any more of the play would ruin the story. But the play has a happy ending as most melodrama’s do, minus the heroine being tied to a train track and then rescued.
Overall, the actors and actresses made the performance a memorable experience.
Alex Oberheide’s supporting role as the butler compared in excellence to the dastardly performance of Dalstrom. These characters brought the best elements of the play to life—both the dramatic and the comical—and complimented each other throughout the play.
At moments, Oberheide and Dalstrom stole the show with their witty banter, which produced quite a few laughs from the audience. However, the plot of the story—the cheesy love that prevails through all trials—shone through with the combined performances of all the actors and actresses, not to mention characters such as the French maid Denise (Emma Davis) and Nella’s sickly mother, Mrs. Hargrave (Kristin C. Sollenberger).
With such memorable, comedic lines as “I was so sick, two weeks ago, I died” and “Tootsie, that big old wife of mine,” this play did not fail to entertain as it stayed true to its melodramatic roots.
“Caught in the Villain’s Web” is showing Oct. 18-20 at 8 pm in Ransburg Auditorium. See the melodrama unfold before your eyes.
