Submitted by Rebecca Graber of the Montgomery Blair High School CAPPIES Theatre Review Group

When "normal people" become desperate for the spotlight, the results can be entertaining, poignant, terrifying, or, in the world of The House of Blue Leaves, a gripping mix of all three. McLean High School in Virginia recently tackled John Guare's Tony award nominated, genre-defying play about Artie Shaughnessy, a New York zookeeper/amateur songwriter desperate to be famous but held back by his mentally unstable wife. In doing so, they became part of the play's thirty-one year saga of simultaneously confusing and enthralling audiences everywhere.

McLean's production was marked by a continuous intensity and energy, upheld by a few particularly talented actors. Gen Blau and Malka Roth turned in very strong performances as Bunny Flingus and Bananas Shaughnessy, Artie's fiancé and wife, respectively. Blau conveyed maturity and a sense of timing rare for a high school actress, while Roth proved very adept at handling Bananas' schizophrenic mood swings with both hilarity and catharsis. Most of the cast matched their energy; Mike Gibson (Artie) carried many of the more serious moments, especially the infamous ending, while Dan Lee (Ronnie Shaugnessy) showed off his agility, running, jumping, and occasionally flipping over couches. A very solid supporting cast helped ensure that some overly rapid line deliveries and lapses in believability did not detract from the overall force of the production.

The actors were backed by a skilled group of student designers and technicians; most of the production staff was actually students. The technical aspects of the production rarely detracted from the play, and often added substantially with subtle effects, such as a slow sunrise behind the apartment in the first act. The attention to detail in the set, designed by Melody Ain, Gen Blau, Jane Kadyszewski, Matt Schnall, and Aaron Wolfe, was also quite impressive; the apartment was complete with a working refrigerator and self-closing "iron bars." Meanwhile, Melody Ain's makeup designs, particularly those for the women, helped keep the play firmly in the 1960s.

Faced with an incredibly complex work, the students of McLean high school succeeded in evoking laughter, cynicism and, ultimately, horror at what some people will do for just a taste of that blue spotlight.