'Child's Play' isn't all that easy

By Lisa Millegan
lmillegan@modbee.com

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TURLOCK -- Watching "Child's Play" is a bit like getting lost in a maze without finding a way out.

The thriller, now running at California State University, Stanislaus, is confusing and left me with many frustrating, unanswered questions. There's a lot of buildup but no payoff.

Robert Marasco's 1970 Tony Award-winning play is an intense, sometimes gruesome show about a feud between two very different faculty members at an exclusive Catholic boarding school. Tensions rise as students begin committing strange acts of violence against each other, with each act worse than the next.

The play was originally written about an all-boys school, but director John Mayer switches it to an all-girls school. The storyline doesn't work as well with girls because the violence is so bloody and intense. It seems unlikely that girls would get that violent.

Give Mayer credit, though, for making the production exciting. He moves the action up to 1989 and adds hard-driving rock and spotlights to his production, giving it the feel at times of an MTV video.

He grabs the audience's attention immediately by kicking off the staging with a sexy opening featuring girls in school uniforms doing a Britney Spears-type dance.

Eric Broadwater's set is gorgeous, one of the best seen in the area in some time. It has colorful stained glass windows, dark wood paneling, a staircase and an ominous-looking large cross.

Elizabeth Holzman is personable as Josephine Dobbs, a popular English teacher who is friendly with students. Kelly Ruelas is stiff and cold as Geraldine Malley, a tough Latin teacher feared for her strict discipline. Malley feels persecuted by Dobbs and is sure she is the person sending her threatening letters but can't find much support because of her acerbic demeanor.

Megan Lynch is sweet and eager to please as new PE teacher and alumna Paula Reese. Gravitating at first toward Dobbs, Reese becomes more sympathetic to Malley as time goes on.

It is hard to understand what motivates each of the characters and why the two feuding teachers can't make peace. The constantly increasing violence among the students is never satisfactorily explained.

Note: the violence can be pretty uncomfortable to watch, particularly in the scene where a student is whipped and hanged on a cross.

While the show looks great, it is more sensational than substantive.

Bee arts writer Lisa Millegan can be reached at 578-2313 or lmillegan@modbee.com.