By Tova Friedman
The Ryerson Theatre School kicked off the winter semester with their comedy show “You Can’t Take It With You” on Feb. 5.
The play is about two contrasting families, one is the Sycamore family who is portrayed as fun loving, while the other is the Kirby family who is illustrated as pretentious and serious. Alice Sycamore and Tony Kirby are in love, but don’t know how to be together without spurring outrage, a comedic twist to Romeo and Juliet.
Through this conflict, the main theme of the play is doing what you love or being with who you love without being held back by fear or judgement.
Photo Courtesy: Ryerson Theatre School
“It is relevant in this day and age where young people are pressured to succeed in life by establishing a career and a stable income,” said Scott Kuipers, the actor who played the father in the Sycamore family. “The performance plays against the capitalist nightmare where every member of the family pursues a passion they love so that they can find happiness in their hobbies and in each other.”
The actors and technical crew for this play relate the idea of pursuing your passions because of their to their own competitive theatre careers.
“It is an interesting thing coming from an actor’s point of view. We are doing what we love because we love it, rather than for the money and the fame,” said Danny Ghantous who played Donald, a friend of the Sycamore family.
The crew invested approximately four months of rehearsal for the performance. According to Jeremy Paquette, the head electrician, they’ve put in one thousand hours of work into every performance.
“In just two weeks, most of the crew put in over one hundred hours of work each. A typical day starts at 9 a.m. in the theatre and ends at 10-11 p.m.,” said Paquette. “Easily one thousand hours of work has gone into every Ryerson show that goes up so I’d like to think it shows in the final product.”
Robert Iannuzziello, the actor who plays the husband of one of the Sycamore daughters, said the fun themes of the play and the cast’s bond makes it a fun environment to work and perform in.
“We are one big family and we share the stage with so many actors at a time,” said Iannuzziello.
“For this reason, we really focused on being a unit, staying connected with our love for one another, and being truthful.”
Leave a Reply