By Elizabeth Scalzo
Entertainment Editor
The University Players’ “Love/Sick” show is an emotional rollercoaster from start to finish.
Composed of nine scenes, the play pairs actors portraying different couples. Each pairing is at a different stage in their relationship, which attributes to the relatability of the show.
No matter what stage of a relationship the audience member is in, they most likely will relate to the show, its themes and the comedy in some way.
This semester The University Players’ cast was larger than their past few shows with 12 members participating. The show was directed by faculty adviser Athos Vardouniotis, who is a theatre professor on campus.
The play had notable performances, and a few scenes stood out and made the audience laugh hard when actors brought their characters to life.
The second scene was one that stood out among them all. The scene involves a woman named Louise Overbee (Madison Martinez) and a singing telegram man (Michael Daniel). Louise receives a singing telegram from the man she is waiting to go on a date with, except the singing telegram man only has bad news for her. Louise then falls into hysterics about being dumped through a singing telegram.
Martinez executed this character magnificently as she fell onto the couch in tears after being overzealous for the singing telegram man to sing to her. The performance from both actors was hilarious, relatable and memorable.
Another scene that stood out is titled “Uh-Oh.” The scene follows married couple Sarah (Nicole Mulligan) and Bill (Zachary Savage). Sarah expresses to Bill that she is bored in their marriage and wants to fix it, but Bill does not seem to care.
Sarah then creates this hypothetical situation of what if she was the type of person who kills the people she loves. Bill eventually says he would work through it with her. She then pulls out a gun which is revealed to be a water gun and scares the daylights out of her husband.
Mulligan kept the audience guessing as to where the scene was going and to no surprise had a large eruption of laughter when she started shooting the water gun at
her co-star Savage. The two actors interacted well and built off one another to make the scene more complex than it was.
Another scene titled “Destiny” — the final scene of the show — exemplified
the true comedic nature of the work. This scene involves a divorced couple who randomly meet again in a grocery store hundreds of miles away from where they originally met.
Jake (Jesse McCormick) was remarried and divorced and Emily (Taylor Hayman), recently widowed, and was stuck in this town when her flight is delayed.
They say to themselves that meeting again after all of the years that it must be destiny, but decide they really did hate each other and meeting again is just a coincidence.
Hayman and McCormick both kept the energy alive despite this being the last scene of the show. Their characters had several fake toasts with the wine that Hayman’s character was buying. Each time both actors reacted to the taste of the wine disapprovingly, the audience erupted in laughter.
All in all, The University Players cast kept the audience laughing throughout the performance and made a memorable night for those who attended.
Photo by Madison Martinez
The cast of “Love/Sick” delivered a hilarious, tangled and emotional show of modern relationships.
