Guest Review: SUITE SURRENDER at Florentine Players

Review by Derek Kowal

SUITE SURRENDER, written by Michael McKeever and produced by the Florentine Players in arrangement with Playscripts, Inc. is directed by Sara Scheidies with assistant director/stage manager Kaitlin Maher.

The year is 1942, and two of the biggest divas in Hollywood have arrived at the luxurious Palm Beach Royale Hotel to prepare for a wartime performance for the troops. Everything seems to be in order until both of these divas, fierce rivals, are booked to stay at the same hotel suite. Add in a nosy reporter trying to get an exclusive story, and a hotel staff becoming increasingly worn out meeting the many requests of the divas, along with putting out fires, and you find you have yourself the makings of a fast-paced and hilarious farce, running this weekend at the Florence Community Theater / Florence City Hall (2864 State Street).

The stage designed and built before you is gorgeous and pink, transporting the audience to a fancy 1940s hotel. Right from the start, the actors will tickle your funny bone with their impeccable comic timing, and brisk pace of delivery and movement. Matt Karasek and Malik Fortner play Francis and Otis, the bellhops, whose physical comedy brings the first laughs of the night and continues all through the entire show. Ben Webb’s flustered hotel manager, Mr. Dunlap, takes you on a journey, and you can see his increasingly failed attempts to maintain control of the situation, as well as his constant confusion of names when it comes to relating to his staff. As the divas, Laura Richwine and CynFranecia Brooks are both divine and evil at the same time, always keeping the audience guessing if their paths will ever cross. Sarah Dighans is well-cast as gossip columnist Dora del Rio. Always seemingly in the wrong place, she is repeatedly knocked unconscious by the many doors in the suite. Her ability to appear as a rag-doll while being dragged into the closet is impressive. She and the white roses spend a great deal of time in there. Daniel Henery-Cavanaugh (Pippet) and Mary Beth Slater (Murphy) are the personal assistants to the two divas. Slater is very natural and gives her backstory the added importance needed to make her character more than just one dimensional. Henry-Cavanaugh plays an endearing downtrodden “yes” man who dutifully does as asked no matter the request. Sue Mouttet delights as society matron Mrs. Everett P. Osgood, president of the Palm Beach Ladies for Unity. She is overpowering in her demands on the management of the Hotel, only adding more stress to the events of the day. Under the direction of Sara Scheidies, this cast will delight theater-goers with some well organized chaos. The story is a classic farce where the characters and situations entangle themselves into a giant mess before things resolve (with a few surprises along the way).

CAST BEN WEBB (Mr Dunlap) MATT KARASEK (Francis) MALIK FORTNER (Otis) CAROLYN Sue Mouttet (Mrs. Osgood) SARAH DIGHANS (Dora del Rio) MARY BETH SLATER (Murphy) DANIEL HENERY-CAVANAUGH (Pippet) CYNFRANECIA BROOKS (Athena Sinclair) LAURA RICHWINE (Claudia McFadden)

Show Dates - August 3,4,5 at 7PM Sunday, August 6, at 2PM Dinner is also available an hour before curtain - Reservations required - (402)455-6341 or at florentineplayers.com