By Chip Dombrowski, Entertainment Editor

A teacher faces an impossible job in ‘Fools’ next weekend at NBHS

NORTH BEND — No one planned a Neil Simon festival in North Bend, but with productions of four of his plays scheduled in six months, it sure seems that way.

There are two each at Little Theatre on the Bay and North Bend High School, and directors at both say the timing is coincidental.

At LTOB, the story is directors Byrell Justice and Tim Novotny didn’t know what the other was planning when they each submitted proposals for “Broadway Bound,” which played in September, and “Laughter on the 23rd Floor,” set for January.

At the high school, drama coach Marcia Marchant doesn’t have anyone else to point a finger at. She said she’s been planning to do the female version of “The Odd Couple” in February for a long time — since before Marshfield did the male version in May or LTOB announced its season. But doing another Simon play this year wasn’t part of the plan.

She wasn’t even looking for a play to fill the gap in the fall schedule when she read “Fools,” which opens next Friday at the school.

“It was just summer reading,” said Marchant, who found the old script in the school’s archive. “I just fell in love with it.”

She said she liked the fanciful nature of the comedy about a Russian village cursed with eternal stupidity.

“It’s an unusual play,” she said. “It completely slips into a fairy tale.”

It’s a different world the characters inhabit, as actor Joel Bolton found when he brought that world with him to school. At his mother’s suggestion, Bolton decided to prepare for his first leading role by spending a day in character as Leon Tolchinsky, a bright-eyed new teacher who thinks he’ll be the one to break the town’s curse.

“I had a lot of people asking why I was walking different, talking different,” said Bolton, 16. “It helped me get a better point of view on how he would act in different situations.”

Marchant said lighter plays like “Fools” are good for the beginning of the year to introduce new members of the drama club.

“We all love a good story,” she said.

The play

Leon Tolchinsky (Bolton) arrives enthusiastically in Kulyenchikov to start his teaching career. But he soon finds it’s not an ordinary town in rural Ukraine.

He first meets Snetsky (Kaleb Noggle), a shepherd who can’t remember his first name, where his sheep are or how many he has. But Snetsky remembers full well why he and everyone else in Kulyenchikov is “unteachable.” It’s the curse.

It’s a peculiar kind of ignorance the residents display, most often confusing things with their opposites, but it doesn’t limit their vocabularies or interfere with their ability to make a living. Slovitch (Leslie O’Dell) runs a butcher shop, Mishkin (Chase Carr) delivers the mail and Yenchna (Emily Thom) sells flowers that she identifies as fish, in a rare departure from the opposite game. And the magistrate (Cody Gotchly) always knows what time it is.

But Leon doesn’t have to worry about educating the whole town. His only student is Sophia Zubritsky (Jasmin Waits), daughter of Dr. Nikolai (Kelly Sanford) and Lenya Zubritsky (Emily Thom). And bringing even one villager into the 19th century may be a daunting challenge, but in the case of Sophia, Leon finds an endless source of motivation: love at first sight.

It keeps him on the job even when he learns the terms of the curse, under which he has only 24 hours to complete the task before falling victim himself. According to legend, there are only two ways to lift the 200-year-old curse, and both are tied to Sophia: She can overcome her ignorance or marry a Yousekevitch, though Count Gregor (Taylor Marchant) is the last of the line.

The odds are against him, but Leon has one thing going for him: the only mind in town.

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