DALLAS TOWNSHIP — Before her boyfriend, who happens to be her boss’ son, comes over to meet her family, Alice Sycamore tries to persuade her eccentric relatives to tone down their antics.
“Don’t read him any plays, Mother, and don’t let a snake bite him, Grandpa, because I like him. And, I wouldn’t dance for him, Essie, because we’re going to the Monte Carlo Ballet tonight.”
Just so you know, Alice’s mom writes plays because a typewriter was delivered to their house by mistake a few years earlier. Her grandfather collects live snakes and her sister, Essie, stretches and twirls in every direction, right in the middle of conversations because, when she’s not making candy, her life seems to be one constant ballet class.
But as the students who are preparing the comedy “You Can’t Take It With You” for March 17-19 at Misericordia University can tell you, those characters are only part of the jolly and unconventional Sycamore household.
“I get so — for lack of a better word — sloshed, I pass out on the couch,” said Zoe Laporte, 19, of West Pittston, who portrays an actress Mrs. Sycamore befriends.
“I build fireworks in the cellar,” said James Cihocki, 19, of Hunlock Creek, who plays Mr. Sycamore. “Everyone in the family does what makes them happy. We’re all in love with life.”
When Alice’s boyfriend brings his parents over to dinner on “the wrong night” — an evening when everyone at Alice’s house is just being himself or herself — the situation turns even more lively than usual.
“It’s mad chaos. People are dancing and painting. There’s a guy in a toga,” said Mason Moher, 21, of Clarks Summit, who plays Alice’s stuffy future father-in-law, Mr. Kirby.
The Kirbys don’t exactly warm up to the Sycamores at first.
“We’re not very nice people,” explained Kali McCornac, 19, of Bethlehem, who plays Mrs. Kirby.
But, who knows? Maybe they’ll loosen up when they get to know the Sycamores better.
If cast members met people like Alice’s family in real life, how would they react?
“I think it would be fun,” said Jacob Schweiger, 21, of Barton, New York, who plays Grandpa.
Annette Ritzko, 19, of Coaldale, who plays a G-Man who just might arrest Grandpa, isn’t quite as sold. “I’d definitely like to visit them,” she said honestly, “but not stay forever.”
But, Moher said, to his way of thinking there’s no need for the young thespians to visit a motley and creative crew like the Sycamores.
“We are like that,” Moher said.