Cast members of the Eatonia Oasis Players act out a scene in the theatre group’s recent set of performances from Jan. 25-27 at the Eatonia Community Hall. In this scene from the play Suite Surrender, written by Michael McKeever, Hollywood divas Athena Sinclair (left with pillow) and Claudia McFadden (right with pillow), who portray mortal enemies, lay a beating on reporter Dora Del Rio (middle) as a host of other cast members look on, including Mr. Pippet (far right), an assistant to McFadden who is ignoring what he might refer to as the Third World War.
Kenneth Brown
of The Clarion
A celebrity quarrel the tabloids would salivate over has played out on stage in Eatonia and the community’s theatre group knocked the performance out of the park.
The Eatonia Oasis Players theatre group presented its version of a play Suite Surrender, written by Michael McKeever, over three nights from Jan. 25-27 at the Eatonia Community Hall. The group returned after a five-year hiatus and the play did not disappoint.
People enjoyed an excellent roasted pork supper prepared by a local catering committee before the show. Members of the Eatonia Lions Club worked the bar, and a long list of volunteers helped in various ways. The crowds on Friday and Saturday were larger in number, but the crowd on Thursday was ready to bust a gut.
Live musical entertainment was provided before the play by Richard and Julie Nunweiler, Brian Swan, Dennis Kanasevich and Carson Dietz. Debbie Kroeker, mistress of ceremonies, welcomed people to a night of music, drama and laughter.
The Oasis Players last performed in 2013 before returning to the stage this year. The theatre group’s longtime director Lenore Bailey was diagnosed with cancer, so the group went on a break that lasted five years. Bailey lost her battle with cancer and a video tribute was shown before the play.
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Suite Surrender takes place in the presidential suite at the Palm Beach Royale Hotel in Florida. The year is 1942 and the hotel is hosting a war benefit with celebrity performances by Hollywood divas Claudia McFadden (Deanna Callsen) and Athena Sinclair (Delia Massey).
The play opens with bellboys Otis (Bryan Somerville) and Francis (Matthew McKinnon) helping to prepare the presidential suite for McFadden, who has to have dozens of white roses spread throughout the room.
Francis, a former performer, sits down at the room’s grand piano to play a number while a surprised Otis grooves out to the number. Bernard S. Dunlap (Dion Swan), the hotel’s manager, enters the room and he immediately comments that recent hotel renovations were a waste of money with a rowdy military crowd about to descend on the hotel.
Mrs. Everett P. Osgood (Cora Knuttila) is the next person to enter the room. Mrs. Osgood represents the Palm Beach Ladies For Unity, or the PBLFU, the group putting on the war benefit for members of the Navy. People in the play have fun with the FU part of the acronym.
The audience soon learns that McFadden and Sinclair, who used to perform together on stage, cannot stand each other and the two divas would be staying in rooms on opposite sides of the hotel. To Dunlap’s chagrin, a reporter from the local newspaper, Dora Del Rio (Kimberley Becker), shows up in the room, but she leaves soon after the manager threatens to have security forcefully remove her.
A bossy and boisterous McFadden enters with her assistant Mr. Pippet (Dylan Somerville), a man that she has do nearly everything for her. Pippet also has to take care of McFadden’s dog among other aspects of her life. After she has Pippet tell her she looks very young, very thin and better than Sinclair on her best day, she makes him play a number on the piano while she sings along in preparation for the benefit.
The disastrous relationship between McFadden and Sinclair continued to be a focus. It was about that time Sinclair and her assistant Murphy Stevens (Maryanne Callsen) walk through the door of the presidential suite. McFadden is in a room on one side of the suite, and Sinclair decides to settle down in a room on the opposite side.
It takes time before Dunlap figures out the two divas are in the same suite. McFadden likes her white roses, but Sinclair hates them. Sinclair likes to have pictures of herself around the room, but McFadden cannot see the pictures.
Francis, who the audience learns had a relationship with Stevens, and Otis keep bringing up the wrong luggage to the room. Until this point, the audience members are the only ones who know what’s going on. That is until Dunlap comes back to the room and asks Stevens where Sinclair has gone.
“Oh good, no blood,” Dunlap says to Stevens, and she tells him Sinclair is in the room. Dunlap, who is also having to deal with rowdy sailors and fires around the hotel, tells her she must do everything in her power to keep Sinclair in her room because McFadden is in the other room. They are the only two people who know.
The hilarity ensues from there. While all nine cast members gave excellent performances, the antics of Pippet drew a majority of laughter from the crowd. Dylan Somerville, a first-time actor, gave a memorable performance with his facial and vocal expressions.
Pippet eventually sees one of Sinclair’s pictures and he gets short tempered with Dunlap in the most hilarious way when he asks what the picture is doing in the room. Pippet’s reaction to finding out Sinclair is in the same suite was priceless.
There was also the time when Francis brought red roses to give to Stevens, who he believed was McFadden’s assistant, so he tells McFadden the roses are for her assistant. The confused diva gives the roses to Pippet and tells him they are from a bellboy, to which he responds, “I have a bellboy?”
A scene when Otis is asked to look after McFadden’s dog goes hilariously wrong when the diva yells for Pippet from her room and a surprised Otis hurls the dog off the balcony and into the pool. Pippet gets hysterical when he finds out and the crowd at it up.
The two enemies finally end up together and after Del Rio copies down a bit of their argument for the paper, the divas start bashing an already battered Del Rio with pillows. McFadden tells everyone to leave the room, but Sinclair stays and the two divas hug, sing a song and talk of their plot to use their war to build ratings for their benefits.
Deanna Callsen, who also directed the play, thanked everyone who helped with the production after the Oasis Players cast and crew took a bow. She also shared a story of when Bailey had asked her to co-direct a play in 2014.
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