Photo courtesy of J. Stubbs Photography (https://jstubbsphotographyvb.com/)

Yankees vs Red Sox.  Jim vs Dwight.  Will Schuester vs Sue Sylvester.  Phoebe Buffay vs that evil twin sister of hers, Ursula.  Rivalries are so fun to watch play out – and you can go ahead and add the protagonists of LTVB’s “Ripcord”, Abby vs Marilyn, to that list. 

“Ripcord” introduces us first to Abby, a long-time resident of the Bristol Place Senior Living Facility.  Abby is stuck in her ways – uninterested in making or having friends, quickly pushing any new resident assigned to the second bed in her room right out the door.  In this role, Nancy Bloom shines, delivering snarky lines with the best of them.  Bloom is subtle but powerful, doing a lot of acting just through her eyes, and when she throws her intimidating one-two punch of insult with withering look, you understand how she is able to keep her double-bedded room all to herself so consistently.

Of course, as in any good rivalry, a challenger, with different strengths, must rise to meet the champ.  In “Ripcord”, that challenger is Marilyn, a newcomer to the senior living facility, played by Kelly Klaers.  Klaers brings big, bright energy to Marilyn throughout.  She is unendingly positive, talking about her family, participating in the events around the facility, and doing her Sudoku puzzles to, as she declares with an emphatic gesture to her head, “keep my brain limber.”  Speaking of emphatic gestures – the writing in this play is very clever and could stand on its own, but Bloom and Klaers do a wonderful job of enhancing the script by selling their lines with masterful body language (look for a very quick moment where Bloom, asking about Marilyn’s grandson’s sanity, asks “or is he a little…” with a hilarious movement indicating her question), and with perfect rat-a-tat rhythm to their conversations.  Credit also belongs to director Sherry Forbes for communicating to her cast what feels natural from the audience’s viewpoint and getting the most out of each and every line.

Watching, and at times participating in, this rivalry is senior facility worker (and amateur actor) Scotty, played by HRACT Award nominee Michael McOsker.  McOsker shows how difficult it can be to stay neutral in a rivalry, while also having his own story playing out (mostly off-stage).  In an amateur acting job for the ages, McOsker plays a man in an electric chair in an incredibly well-executed and unexpected on-stage haunted house, which he convinces much of the senior living facility to attend.  (That electric chair, by the way, is quite an impressive prop for such a quick moment – so don’t miss it!)  And we’ve seen enough of McOsker on-stage at this point to fully agree with his final line, the one that might have gotten the most applause of the evening – “because I am a good actor!”  Also along for the ride is Amanda Anderson as Colleen (Marilyn’s daughter).  Anderson was very funny, bringing just the right energy to match Klaers’s, seeming to be game for anything as she participated in her mom’s shenanigans.  Same for Peter Scheible and Peter Fagan, who played the roles of “anyone else we need on stage” and did so with aplomb, from Marilyn’s sons (and son-in-law) to a creepy clown and a limping zombie butler.

Becoming a theme for LTVB, the set design was once again worth remarking upon.  Set designer/decorator Donna Lawheed, set decorator Lisa Stafford, and set coordinator Glenn Semones transformed their corner stage into a nifty and functional set, with a main setting in a retirement home room with a cool window, working wall sconces, and a door leading to a bathroom (I’m always excited when there is a door on stage with something actually behind it rather than just a way on- and off-stage).  Two of the walls of the retirement home room are on hinges for easy adaptation to different scenes, including the aforementioned massively entertaining haunted house and a fall-out-of-your-chair hilarious parachuting scene (I can only imagine the panic that a set designer has when they see a skydiving scene in a script). 

“Ripcord”, at its core, is a show about community, and keeping your heart open, even as you get older and have many things to be cynical about.  It is an overwhelmingly good time, and this cast will make you feel something too.  And don’t worry – even though Marilyn spends more than half the show trying to scare Abby, there isn’t anything under that balled-up comforter on stage when you walk in – something that for some reason I was worried about for the twenty minutes before the curtain.  I might have seen too many spooky shows this year (this is not one… but if it were, at least I know to call out “sassafras” for a needed respite).