Coincidence is a funny thing. Some people believe that nothing happens by accident in God’s universe or our lives; thus, there is no such thing as a coincidence.
Some people refer instead to synchronicity, the experience of two or more causally unrelated events occurring together in a meaningful manner.
Well, whatever you choose to believe, stuff happens, right?
When my sister, Joyce, was in Wisconsin in May, she met an old high school friend for dinner, and one of the topics of their conversation was their collaboration on the set design and construction for their high school senior class play back in 1958. The play was “Around the World in 80 Days,” a stage adaptation of the famous Jules Verne novel of the 1870s.
Joyce talked to me about the play as we drove to Marshfield and back to visit our lone remaining aunt.
Well then, as luck—or coincidence, or synchronicity—would have it, our friends, the Loomers, sent us information about a production of the play at Ripon College at the end of May. So we went. We enjoyed the show but realized it was a relatively new interpretation of the work, quite different from the one my sister worked on back at OFHS in 1958.
All of that got me thinking about the senior class play in my senior year. “The great Class of 1957,” as I always refer to us, did a show, too.
But ours was not based on a classic piece of literature; ours was a very forgettable piece of fluff that no one has ever heard of since, I’ll bet.
The playwright was Guernsey LePelley (I had trouble finding that on the ‘net!) and my guess is that he didn’t get rich from “Love Is Too Much Trouble.” Our director was Erv Benka, and heaven knows where he found it.
But we rehearsed it for several weeks and presented it on a Sunday afternoon in the spring on a makeshift “stage” in the gymnasium because most of the school had burned that spring.
A review of the play appeared in the old Oconto Falls Herald (I still have a copy!). I suspect that the “review” was written by Mrs. Shellman, wife of the publisher. Here’s how she started: “The members of the Senior
Class at Oconto Falls High School put on a wonderful performance of ‘Love Is Too Much Trouble’ for both students and adults. Many favorable comments were heard from people and students in attendance. No one member of the cast can be said to be outstanding, for all worked as a team and all stood out.” Yup, we weren’t outstanding, but we stood out!
I confess my recollection of the play and the performance are somewhat hazy (Remember, I said it was forgettable.), but I do remember the setting was a college eating place, affectionately known to the students as the “Poison Pot.” The hangout was located just off the campus of some fictional college. The time was spring, shortly before the Junior Prom, and the plot revolved around a guy who has been restricted from attending the prom—I don’t remember why. That guy was Rick O’Neill, I think. And I think he also played a girl as part of the plot, but I’m not 100 percent sure about that. Rick would probably like to forget that part, too!
I played a character named Pinky, and Mrs. Shellman’s review said I was “the instigator of trouble.” I don’t remember enough about the play to know what trouble I instigated. I do remember that quite a few of my good friends were in the play. Jack Magnin’s character was in on the “instigation” of the troubles.
From Mrs. Shellman’s review, here are the others in the cast: Lorraine Kobs Radke, Chuck Mayer, Mary Dean Keith Lundquist, Connie Lutz Carter, Sandy Gilbertson Davel, Sylvia Wusterbarth Scott, Betty Magill Gauthier, Claudette Tait Prenger, the late Franklyn Loberger, Bev Everard Kratz and Donna Birr Jacobson.
It’s kind of amazing to think that all but one of those people are still alive some 56 years since we did that play; Frank Loberger died in July. I wonder how many of my cast mates remember anything about the play!
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