True love wins out with help from 'Scapino!'
Play review
By Sally Carpenter sallyc@theacorn.com

TO THE RESCUE- Giacinta (Jillian Bischoft, right) pleads for Scapino's expertise to help her and her lover, Ottavio, from a jam. Scapino (Ryan Winred, center) mulls over the offer as he muzzles Ottavio (James Culbertson) in "Scapino!" at Moorpark College. In the background, Sylvia (Sarah Guyadeen) watches.

Bored with TV reruns? Moorpark College offers the perfect cure for the summertime blues with a zany comedy, "Scapino!"

You'll need a scorecard to keep track of the many characters and their relationships. Briefly, in Naples, Italy, there are two young men, both secretly married to gypsy girls below their rank.

But their fathers have both arranged for their heirs to marry others, and these dads don't take kindly to having their plans thwarted.

The young husbands, Leandro (Alex Matute) and Ottavio (James Culbertson), beg the local rogue Scapino (Ryan Winred) to help them out of their jam. After much persuasion, Scapino agrees to assist. He cons the fathers, Geronte (Frank Payfer) and Argante (Ian Freeman), both greedy misers, into giving him money to finance their sons' schemes. However, the fathers learn they've been bamboozled and set out for Scapino's scalp.

This plays out far funnier than it may sound. It's based on a classic comedy by French playwright Moliere, "Les Fourberies de Scapin" (literally, "Scapin's deceits"), with updated language and far more stunt work than Moliere would have imagined.

The actors run, fall, roll on the floor, climb balconies, swing on ropes, whack each other with enormous sausages and never stand still for a moment. Even a simple eating scene is an energetic romp, with actors stuffing spaghetti into their mouths- and feeding their fellow actors as well.

Winred is a smooth-talking trickster, like Harold Hill of "The Music Man." Winred's a delight in Act 2 when he plays various characters to fool Geronte into thinking he's being attacked.

Payfer is blustery as the angry but gullible dad who swallows Spacino's swindle as easily as wine. Freeman is hilarious as his blood pressure rises when he hears of his wimpy son's wedlock.

Culbertson is the quintessential teenager-in-love as he mopes about with puppy-dog eyes, and Jillian Bischoft as Giacinta is charming as the girl of his dreams. Sarah Guyadeen as Sylvia, Ottavio's friend, is a showstopper in her scene when she plays a tough-talking hood to fool Argante.

The play is in the Performing Arts Center's Studio Theater. Sets in this small black box are usually simple, but the tech crew has built a colorful, multilevel Italian restaurant complete with a "pond" made of foam rubber waves into which the actors fall with appropriate sound effects. The actors make full use of the space and occasionally spill out into the audience.

And the audience is close enough to the stage for a closeup look at comic expressions. In such an intimate setting, I would have liked more asides and audience participation to draw patrons into the action. (Watch out for Scapino's joke about the Moorpark Acorn.)

Tiny quibbles: Freeman's forehead-aging makeup looks more like lines than wrinkles. At times the pace is almost too frantic, and one longs to pause for a breath.

Still, the younger, video game generation may feel comfortable with the hectic speed.

The show's opening scene chugs along with 10 minutes of tedious exposition, but once the plot gets going and Scapino starts his deceptions, the audience is in for a merry time.

The play is commedia dell'arte, a style of Italian improv comedy popular from the 1500s through the 18th century.

This tradition had stock characters, such as young lovers, stern parents, sly servants, and stock situations, usually with rich and powerful parents attempting to thwart the marriages of their purehearted children. The lovers receive help from zanni- Italian for the English "zany"- characters such as Scapino, and order is happily restored. The TV situation comedy owes its origins to this art form.

College instructor John Loprieno directed the fun, and musician Elwyn Ellis provides a nice touch with his live accordion music.

The show continues 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays to Aug. 4, with 2 p.m. matinees July 29 and Aug. 5. The college is at 7075 Campus Road, Moorpark.

For tickets, call (805) 3781485 or go online to www. moorparkcollege.edu/theatre.