A Look Back: Scapin

EAST PEORIA — Audience at Illinois Central College had an interesting evening that love, fun and laughter.

 On Sept. 27, the ICC Arts and Communication Department Theatre Program presented the latest show “Scapin” at the Performing Arts Center. It’s a story about a servant who is asked for help to take money from their fathers because they are in love; but as soon as he heard that one father talked bad about him, he seeks revenge by playing a practical joke.

 There's the character Scapin, played by Ryan Groves, who has a very comedic side. Groves’ character had a bit of a resemblance of Charlie Chaplin, the iconic actor from the 1920’s.

 The show, at times, broke into the fourth wall, where the characters walk off stage and performed scenes with the audience. During one scene, Scapin asked the director to bring the lights up to talk to the audience and ask them a couple of questions.

 Throughout the show, there were different kinds of lighting. In one scene, Geronte, played by Sam Curry, was running around chasing Octave’s father Argante, played by Ramsey Hendricks, where white lights were flashing and the music was playing loud and fast. This symbolized the speedup to the scene in the story to a classic silent comedy films.

 There were interesting characters throughout the show. One of them, Sylvestre, played by Logan Henderson, played a kind side kick to Scapin when it comes to help scheming others. Both Scapin and Sylvestre had some similarities of the classic comedic duos from Bing Crosby and Bob Hope to Abbott and Costello.

  But the funniest character was in the scene where it happens to be the funniest scene of the show.  As a way to get revenge, Scapin tells Geronte that a couple of foreign officer were coming for him, he gets in a big white bag hoping they wouldn’t find him.

 As soon as Geronte gets in the bag, Scapin has some fun; he acts out different foreign characters from a Spanish officer to a French officer and starts beating him with a loaf of bread. But as soon as Sylvestre came in, he starts acting as a German officer; Geronte’s reaction was frighten and bounced away as fast as he could. Both Scapin and Sylvestre beat Geronte and then pulled two audience members to beat him too.  

 There was a scene or two in the show that didn’t go as plan, but that didn’t stop the actors. One scene where Scapin’s hat was drop on the floor by Argante, the coins bounced on the floor and one coin rolled off stage.

 “Scapin” is a play about seeking revenge on someone to help those that are in need. It’s also about that you can’t buy love but that loves somehow fines away.

The show was simply amazing with a lot of reference of style from the 1920's comedy films an vaudeville acts. The characters were just hilarious with the funnest scene coming from when two audience members beat a character with a loaf of bread.