The show must go on

Elizabeth Voloshin

Chronicle Reporter

“Scenes from a Quarantine,” written by Lindsay Price, was performed Oct. 16 and 17 by Hollywood High students. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many extracurricular activities were cancelled, with theater being one of them. However, this didn’t stop the theater department from having their performances. Thanks to theater teacher John Tourtellotte, students once again were able to perform. This time virtually!

The show follows the lives of several individuals and how they are dealing with the quarantine. There were some scenes which I found to be extremely hilarious and others that I found to be somewhat a yawn. 

The scene about Romeo, played by Immanuel Tims, and Juliet, played by Kiya Ashley, was one of the most hilarious scenes in the whole show. It paid homage to the original story by William Shakespeare while at the same time completely revamping the scenario. I particularly liked all the little details that were added into the show, such as the little time the two were dating, and their reactions to each other’s gifts. Overall this was a very enjoyable scene. 

Another scene that I particularly liked was the one that depicted how our animals feel about us being home all the time. In this scene a cat (Shadow), played by Dolchanok Suidaeng, and a dog (Lucky), played by Milo Koyfman, are talking about why “the human” is always home. 

I found this to be adorable and laughable as I’m sure we can all agree that our animals are either stoked or annoyed by us always staying home. Something I was extremely impressed by was the way Shadow and Lucky were portrayed.

Shadow had an “evil-scientist” vibe as she was trying to figure out as to why the human is always home. Lucky, on the other hand, was extremely happy that their human is constantly home. This was a very clever way to express the independence of cats and the constant excitement of dogs.

The scene in which War (played by Shanyia Corbin), Pestilence (played by Citlalie Parungao), Famine (played by Milo Koyfman), and Death (played by Catalina Agrello) were in a meeting was probably the one I found to be the least successful. I completely understand where the scene was trying to go and this was a very creative take on Zoom meetings; however, the execution simply was not as enjoyable as the others. It felt dull and lifeless. 

Other scenes, such as the one about Sky (played by Amanda Brooks), a girl originally excited about quarantine, but then becomes extremely bored of it, and the one about Co (played by Stazia Liden) and Alex (played by Michaela Trebly) fell into a gray zone for me where they were both interesting but also somewhat dull. I feel like more could have been done to make the scenes feel more lively. 

However, something I found to be extremely impressive was the way the play presented certain situations and the way the actors interacted with each other (even though everything was virtual).

The scene about Alex and Co, where Alex decided to sneak out and hang out with her friends only to have COVID visit her (indicating that she got COVID-19 from not social distancing) was a surprisingly deep scene. It dug into everyone ‘s deep desire to return to our normal lives and how suddenly people can get COVID-19. This scene was rather important for some people to watch as it shows how risky it can be to do something as simple as hang out with your friends.

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