Over 100 people packed into the Davidson School gym last Thursday night to take in a performance of “Saturday Matinee,” put on by the school junior drama club.
“I really like this one because it is about kids this age,” said co-director Cathy Rettger, noting the cast is made of grades 6 to 8 students. “It’s about the things they would be worried about and the things they would be thinking about, so it’s a lot of fun and they had some fun doing it.”
“Saturday Matinee” is a look into the minds of a young audience seated in a theatre and waiting for the movie to start. The funny and sarcastic play, which features the majority of the dialogue in monologue, examines the questions kids have about what other kids are doing and what they should be doing in response.
Opening with Alice (Sarah Allan) walking into the theatre and deciding what seat she wants, the play action quickly rises with the introduction of new characters Tom (Jacob Schilling), Kate (Emily Read), and Pat (Elena Nykiforuk) who can’t figure out what each other are up to and why it’s taking Tom so long to actually sit down.
Kent (Morgan Manz) and Maria (Katherine Cool) then enter as the older kids on a first date and their own questions about how fresh the other one wants to get. Social outcasts Mindy (Jade Thomson) and Ben (Justin Sandsbraaten) follow providing the advancement of the plot and comic relief respectably.
Next coming in is the cool mean girls clique of Laura (Breanna Shaw), Holly (Tiara Shaw), Gina (Geena Heinrich) and Crystal (Brayden Sharron) whose job it is to torture social outcast Mindy to adverse results.
Shannon (Jacquie Gackstetter) and Charlie (Josh Landry) enter next to fill out the cast bringing the story to climax with an overflowing of voices leading the production into a state of chaos.
The falling action sees the actors exit quickly in teen angst and frustration before the movie has even begun, leaving Alice once again as the lone attendant of the theatre picking out the perfect seat to watch the movie.
To read more please see the December 10 print edition of The Davidson Leader.