Feel Like a Fool? You're Not Alone

Make sure you read the playbill's director’s note before the start of Fools at . Otherwise, you might think you’ve landed inside a Lady Gaga music video.

It’s because director Robb Rigg presents the Neil Simon-penned romantic comedy as a work of commedia dell'arte, a bawdy, slapstick style of theatrical clowning developed in Italy during the Renaissance.

In Rigg’s production, the actors wear heavily made-up clown faces and move around the stage like court jesters. They perform broad physical comedy, speak in outrageous puns and even break out in a crazy group dance like a flash mob.

For Rigg, recently retired from , where he helped develop its performing arts program, commedia dell’arte offers the ideal format in telling the story of young love complicated by a town beset by fools.

“Commedia dell’arte introduced stock characters to the theater as well as the character of the fop, which is certainly what our Count Gregor is,” Rigg said. “I tried once at San Juan Hills, but for it to be done correctly, commedia dell’arte has to have very playful clowning and some of the humor is adult-themed. So, of course, at a high school you’re very limited.”

The theatrical style throws a spotlight onto the stupid is as stupid does tenor of Fools. Playing the fool is a way of life in the Ukrainian village of Kulyenchikov, where the citizens are under the spell of a centuries-old curse. Snetsky (Kyle Keffer) loses his flock of sheep rather than herds it. The local vendor Yenchna (Docy Andrews) hawks flowers as if they are fish. The butcher Slovitch (Joe Yacoubian) sweeps dirt into his shop. Mail carrier Mishkin (Dave Anderson) swaps people’s letters on a whim. The magistrate (Richard Treasure) runs amok as the town crier.

Into this vacuum of common sense walks Leon Tolchinsky (Kerry Kaz), an ambitious young schoolteacher answering an offer of employment from Dr. Zubritsky (Craig Mason), the town physician although he never went to medical school.

The doctor and his wife Lenya (Gina Treasure) have hired more than a few schoolteachers. They’re desperate to educate their stupid daughter Sophia (Kirsten Dierking), who is so dumb that sitting is a life skill for her.

Despite his enthusiasm for teaching, Leon nearly quits when he comprehends the depth of stupidity that surrounds him. But then he spies the beautiful Sophia and is instantly smitten. Alas, the curse includes the inability to love. Sophia is incapable of feeling love toward Leon (lust, however, proves no difficulty).

Leon realizes his real job in Kulyenchikov is to break the ancient curse, preferably within 24 hours in order to avoid falling under the spell of stupidity himself. If he fails, he’ll lose Sophia to Count Gregor Yousekevitch (Mark Schwartz) whose family started the curse to avenge a jilted fiancé. Though he doesn’t love her, the count wants to marry Sophia, as he’s the last in the Yousekevitch line.

A love cursed, the foolishness of love, the inability to love ... hmm.

Could there be some truth to the allegation that Broadway playwright Simon wrote Fools out of spite? As part of his divorce agreement with Goodbye Girl actress Marsha Mason, she was to be awarded the profits of his next play. Simon supposedly wrote Fools as a clunker, and indeed, it only lasted 40 performances despite being helmed by the great Mike Nichols with a cast led by the stellar John Rubinstein.

Rigg points out that Fools also was written in homage to Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, a master of comedy. In the playbill's director’s note, Rigg explained that the stream-of-consciousness narrative throughout Fools is a literary device originated by Chekhov to let the audience into the characters’ personal thoughts.

Answering the call for physical comedy, the cast literally throws itself  into its work. The actors bust through doors, roll on the floor, climb balconies and engage in the funniest quick step outside of Dancing with the Stars.

Playhouse newcomer and Syracuse University graduate Kerry Kaz hits the mark for fresh-faced earnest idealism in his portrayal of love-struck Leon.

Another first-timer, Dave Anderson, and Playhouse vets Joe Yacoubian and Kyle Keffer as Mishkin, Slovitch and Snetsky, respectively, serve up yuks and gags in the hilariously clever vein of the Three Stooges.

In her debut on the main stage following her sharp turn as robot Betta in on the Playhouse’s Stage II, Docy Andrews as Yenchna hams it up in a winking-to-the-audience way a là wonderful comedian  Lucille Ball.

Stand-up comic Craig Mason channeled his inner Steve Martin/Dan Aykroyd as a wild-and-crazy-guy-sounding Dr. Zubritsky. Gina Treasure injects Lenya Zubritsky with a smart goofiness as she did with the endearing Esther Simowitz in last season’s Breaking Up Is Hard to Do. Kirsten Dierking’s Sophia is no dumb bunny as she questions her self-awareness.

Mark Schwartz has chewed up more than a few Playhouse scenes, most recently as Reverend Lionel Toop in last season’s farce . His supercilious Count Gregor is a hoot.

Rigg stages a comeback of sorts, having directed Weekend Comedy at the Playhouse eight years ago. He launched the South Orange County School of the Arts program at Dana Hills High School, and then moved to San Juan Hills High. Still the teacher in his retirement, Rigg sprinkles his own satirical commentary throughout Fools—with all due respect to Simon.

“The words are the playwright’s,” Rigg said. “You have to be true to them, but then you can add your own spin.”

The slings and arrows that fly through the dialogue and around the stage illustrate that there are plenty of fools to go around in today’s society, politics, sports and culture.

Fools runs weekends through Oct. 2. Check all dates and show times and buy tickets online at Camino Real Playhouse.