Event Article

The play "Hold me," which is being presented by FC's Theatre Arts Department, has a different twist. Instead of portraying the beautiful, successful people of the world who inevitably have stepped upon toes to achieve their position, it is about characters who could be described as the stepped-upons.

These people truly believe that is what they are. What is worse, they cannot even see themselves as first rate stepped-upons, but rather as second-rate ones, not even being able to fail properly.

Jules Feiffer, the writer of "Hold me," is the well-known cartoonist of the comic strip "Feiffer." Clive Barnes, a critic from the New York Times describes Feiffer's personality and how it relates to "Hold me:"

"For years Feiffer has produced a cartoon strip that is a 'Peanuts' for the disturbed classes. What he is exploring is urban paranoia or New York rot. The jokes remain funny because Feiffer never makes jokes.

He muses on urban man, the cesspool of urban man's mind, the beauty of his neuroses, and the inevitability of his wilting disappointment. With a subject like that you cannot go wrong for, after all, it is just plain folks."

"Hold me" consists of 71 separate sketches describing five people in their "swim through the cesspool of life."

Acting out these characters will prove to be challenging. Not making them so neurotic that the audience becomes pitiful and the satire becomes lost will be a job for director George Archambeault, director of FC's Theatre Arts Department.

Playing the parts of these stepped-upons from the world's disturbed class will be Tera Marie Coughlin, Michael A. Kane, Harvey Hand, Terri May and Hattie Toten.

The play will run from May 11 to 25, starting at 8 p.m. Prices will be $2.50 for adults and $1.50 for students.