Excerpted from The City Paper, Toledo, Ohio, Page xx, January 18-24, 2004
Do you know where your pants are?
“ It Had To Be You” at the Village Players is downright funny
by Kay Louise Jurski
This play is more fun than hiding a man’s pants in the refrigerator! If an audience’s response is an accurate gauge for the quality of a performance, then the Village Players’ “It Had To Be You” is off the charts where laughter is concerned.
The story begins innocently enough. Theda Blau, a struggling actress (played by Debbie Marinik), botches up yet another audition with her zany antics and endless rambling. Despite her failure, however, the project’s unsuspecting producer/director, Vito Pignoli (played by Larry Farley), thinks he sees a quality in her that he could use in an upcoming job. Maybe it’s because he feels sorry for her, or maybe because he too is lonely on Christmas Eve; whatever the reason, Vito walks Theda home to her New York City, East Village tenement apartment.
Once she has him there (securely locked inside), she uses the coy, seductive art of manipulating Vito to keep him from leaving. What he thinks is a “one-night-stand,” turns out to be a night out of the Twilight Zone. Following their carnal rendezvous, Theda hides his clothes in odd locations, all around her apartment, to delay his leaving. When he attempts to escape realizing that she has other, long-term ideas in mind, Vito becomes increasingly frustrated and finally angry, as she repeatedly insists that he is obviously in love with her and that they are now in a committed relationship. Does it sound loopy? You can be certain, it is. Equipped with a squeaky voice and farcical movement, Marinik’s Theda continually succeeds in raising Vito’s level of ferment.
After poor Vito finally finds his pants in the fridge (ever try to put on chilled pants?), he battles with the multi-dead-bolted apartment door (a fight which he loses). The already “crowing” level of laughter coming from the audience immediately jumped up to the genuine rank of “howling” when Vito proclaimed in anguish, “I don‘t know any man who would put up with you, unless he was gay and just wanted to be reminded of why he was.”
Vito’s wild ride continues as he uses the phone to try and find a ride home
(there’s a snowstorm outside). Of course Theda refuses to give him the address
where he might be picked up, and then feeds his already aching head with
dramatic readings from a play she wrote — painfully bad readings. The first half
of “It Had To Be You” came to a guffawing close after the equally spirited Theda
and Vito became involved in sex, swearing, yelling and sparring (don’t bring
your children).
During any intermission at the Village Players Theater you’ll find the audience
standing and socializing. Because several people in the audience seem to know
each other, there is an abundance of that “community” feeling, in this community
theater. The atmosphere after the bawdy first act left everyone uplifted and
smiling and seemingly eager for the show to resume.
The true accomplishment of this show’s cast of two (yes, only two) is the plain fact that this duo, with no time to rest or review their lines, carried the entire performance with exquisite comic timing and not so much as a smirk, while the audience roared with laughter. Both Farley and Marinik remained in character, amazingly unaffected by the boisterous noise in the theater, holding the nearly sold-out assembly for an hour-and-a-half with refreshing confidence.
Catch the final showings of the hilarious “It Had To Be You,” January 22-24.
Showtime is 8 pm.
The Village Players Theatre is located at 2740 Upton Ave. near Monroe St. For
tickets and information call 419-472-6817 or 419-472-6827. Ticket price is $14.
Kay Louise Jurski is a TCP freelance writer.
Last Modified: 01/25/04