Spring Break
Neil Simon's 'Fools' follows follies of fatuous folk
by Dan Forman
Arts | 11/20/07
Posted online at 9:35 PM EST on 11/19/07
The Hillel Theater Group, led by director Suri Ellerton '10, performed Neil Simon's Fools last weekend in the Carl J. Shapiro Theater in the campus center. The play, not ranked among Simon's more well-known comedies, such as The Odd Couple and Barefoot in the Park, makes use of a steady barrage of non sequiturs and malapropisms to present a social commentary about the use, importance and definition of knowledge and its relevancy to love.
The story is about a young and overzealous Russian schoolteacher named Leon who finds his way to the town of Kuyenchikov to educate the citizenry in such subjects as philosophy, astronomy, mathematics and history. What he soon realizes is that the citizenry is composed of individuals who cannot formulate a single logical thought. The men and women are under a curse of eternal stupidity and ignorance cast upon the village before they were born by Vladmir Youskevich, whose illiterate son killed himself after his lover's disapproving father prohibited her from ever seeing him.
Because of this town's unique situation, Leon's initial task of educating the students becomes a heroic mission to lift the curse and with it the veil of ignorance shrouding the entire populace. What ensue are struggles of love with the doctor's daughter, Sophia, who entrances Leon with her beauty and her-let's call it simplicity-and power, having to do with the megalomaniacal Count Youskevich. Leon must educate Sophia within 24 hours in order to lift the Youskevich curse or, supposedly, fall victim to the curse of stupidity himself (the latter consequence was just a foolish myth that would never actually come to fruition).
Throughout his stay, Leon also engages in multiple exchanges with some of the other villagers, such as Snetsky, the old, hunchbacked shepherd, who is constantly searching for two dozen lost sheep ("All 14 of them," he claims), Slovich, the idiot butcher (spelled "bucher"), Mishkin, the confused postman, and Magistrate, the magistrate who serves virtually no purpose.
The story is about a young and overzealous Russian schoolteacher named Leon who finds his way to the town of Kuyenchikov to educate the citizenry in such subjects as philosophy, astronomy, mathematics and history. What he soon realizes is that the citizenry is composed of individuals who cannot formulate a single logical thought. The men and women are under a curse of eternal stupidity and ignorance cast upon the village before they were born by Vladmir Youskevich, whose illiterate son killed himself after his lover's disapproving father prohibited her from ever seeing him.
Because of this town's unique situation, Leon's initial task of educating the students becomes a heroic mission to lift the curse and with it the veil of ignorance shrouding the entire populace. What ensue are struggles of love with the doctor's daughter, Sophia, who entrances Leon with her beauty and her-let's call it simplicity-and power, having to do with the megalomaniacal Count Youskevich. Leon must educate Sophia within 24 hours in order to lift the Youskevich curse or, supposedly, fall victim to the curse of stupidity himself (the latter consequence was just a foolish myth that would never actually come to fruition).
Throughout his stay, Leon also engages in multiple exchanges with some of the other villagers, such as Snetsky, the old, hunchbacked shepherd, who is constantly searching for two dozen lost sheep ("All 14 of them," he claims), Slovich, the idiot butcher (spelled "bucher"), Mishkin, the confused postman, and Magistrate, the magistrate who serves virtually no purpose.
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