The laugh is on Neil Simon, literally.
Dan Heath, Great Bend High School fall play director, said there’s an interesting story behind why Simon wrote his comic fable “Fools,” a production that is playing Nov. 16-18 at Great Bend High School.
The story goes that Simon, as part of a divorce settlement, pledged the royalties from his next Broadway play. Not wanting his ex-wife to make a fortune, he produced “Fools,” which closed after 40 performances.
While “Fools” didn’t impress the New York critics or theater-goers in 1981, the script was too funny to die and remains a staple of academic and community theater with hundreds of performances staged around the world each year.
“GBHS staged a production more than a decade ago under the direction of former theater teacher, Sally O’Conner,” Heath said.
“Fools” is set in the late 1800s in the fictional Ukrainian village of Kulyenchikov, where an eager young schoolteacher, Leon Tolchinsky (Aaron Clark), arrives to take on a new post. Leon soon discovers Kulvenchikov is a town full of stupid people. He encounters three idiotic shepherds, each named Snetsky (Ashtin Heath, Julia Walker and Lexie Sexton), who are so dumb they can’t remember their full names or where to find their sheep (Aaron Miller, Molly Hestand and Gentry Schneider.)
The other townsfolk are equally idiotic: The magistrate (Sara Keller); Mishkin, the postman, (Chris Falck); Slovitch, the butcher, (Landon Winkler); and Yencha, the vendor, (Malia Clark).
When Leon meets with his employer, Dr. Zubritsky (Marcos Martinez) and his wife, Lenya, (Michelle Rooney), he learns the reason for the rampant stupidity is a 200-year-old curse imposed by a nobleman Vladimir Yousekevitch, whose son fell in love with a maiden named Sophia Zubritsky and was set to marry her until her father discovered the boy was illiterate and forced his daughter to marry another man.
As a result, Vladimir’s son cursed the entire town with idiocy in a spell that can only be broken in one of two ways by Sophia’s descendants, also named Sophia Zubritsky (Paige VanSteenburgh). One way requires Sophia to marry a Yousekevitch, but she turns down the twice-a-day proposals by the current Count Yousekevitch (Zack Clothier).
The other way is for Leon to educate Sophia within 24 hours before the teacher also falls victim to the curse.
“The play has a moral about how people are only as stupid as they think they are and if they believe it is not true then anything is possible,” Heath said. “With witty dialog, fast-paced action and talking sheep, there is plenty of comedy in ‘Fools.’”
The performances for “Fools” are at 2:05 p.m. Sunday and 7:05 p.m. Monday and Tuesday in the auditorium of Great Bend High School, 2027 Morton. Tickets are$5 and can be purchased at the door.