Show delivers shucks and jives ‘How the Other Half Loves’ a hit during its campus debut

“Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!”

The announcer of a boxing match shouts in excitement after a quick right by George Foreman sends his opponent to the mat.

It really came out of nowhere.

Alan Ayckbourn’s “How the Other Half Loves,” which had its Los Angeles Pierce College Theater debut Friday night, premiered in 1969 as the ninth of what today is more than 70 plays by the heralded master of the absurdist’s genre of comical theater: British farce. A 43-year-old play of a foreign niche genre might sound a little outof-left-field. But, really, it was more like Foreman’s right glove.

Six characters compose three married English couples. The husband of a working class couple and his boss’s wife drag in a third couple when they use them as their alibis to cover up their affair.

It may not seem to add up. And, really, it’s not entirely meant to. But, long story short, a Friendsmeets-Monty-Python brand of hilarity ensues.

An unshifting set of two living rooms spliced together, replete with alternating patterns of wallpaper and two overlapping dining tables, proves a fittingly surreal playground for the the play’s farcical antics.

When the players pick up telephones ringing some four feet away from them, the audience is beckoned to play along and suspend belief.

The set is just as ridiculous as it is ingenious. The plot, characters and set all uniformly express a haphazard intertwining of things normally kept private.

The plot shucks and jives, and it’s better experienced being dragged

Singing competition coming to campus

Michaia Hernandez/Roundup mhernandez.roundupnews@gmail.com

Aspiring student vocalists will get a chance to showcase their talent through the first “Pierce Idol,” a campus-wide singing competition formatted similarly to “American Idol."

Auditions for the event, which is sponsored by the Associated Students Organization’s Social Cultural Committee, takes place Friday from 1 to 3 p.m. in room 4460 behind the Center for Sciences.

Through auditions, organizers hope to gauge the number of students interested in competing in the actual competition, according Sofya Sargsyan, member of the committee.

“I don’t know what the turnout is going to be. I hope to have a lot of people,” she said.

Sargsyan said that they are looking for a maximum of 20 to 25 acts for “Pierce Idol,” which takes place in the Great Hall Nov. 15 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

She will be judging at the auditions, along with another musically inclined professor.

For the competition, on the other hand, the judging panel will consist of a number of professors with a background in music. behind rather than spent trying to keep up.

“I think that we don’t get a lot of opportunities [like this],” Sargsyan said.

The judges will select the best performances and choose the top three performers.

First, second, and third place winners will be awarded large, medium, and small trophies, respectively.

Students who wish to audition must bring an instrumental track of their song of choice on a CD on Friday, Nov. 2, 2012.

The characters aren’t so much introduced as dumped on your head, say, like a bowl of air-freshenerscented soup or the contents of a leaking, upstairs toilet.

Frank Foster, the boss of the other two husbands, is brought to light as an unrelentingly absentminded sleuth by Michael Chandler, and he picks out laughs from places few would ever find them.

Allison Kranz wrenches the jerkily timid Mary Featherstone out of her shell.

“He writes these very, very funny comedies, but there’s also an undercurrent to them that’s very serious,” she said.

Before she became a professional instructor for theater arts, she was an actress.

Born in Nottingham, England, Adcock knew early on that she wanted to act.

“It’s just one of those things that you knew from an early age you wanted to do. I think a lot of actors are like that,” she said.

Her family thought she was “mad,” but remained supportive, according to Adcock.

“They still think I’m mad,” she said.

Partly to pursue her education and acting career, Adcock moved to Paris by herself when she was 17 years old. Another reason she left England was the “depressed” environment she was around, she said.

“When I was very young, around 9 or 10 years old, I knew I would not live the rest of my life in England,” she said. “We had television, and we had movies, and we could see that the world wasn’t like that everywhere.”

Traveling from England to France wasn’t difficult for Adcock, despite her family’s financial status—she described them as “poor” back then— because of grants provided by English universities and the affordability of traveling there.

“You could go on a boat for $20. That was a while back, of course,” she said.

Not unlike many before her, she fell instantly in love with Paris.

“It’s one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and anybody who’s been there would know that,” she said.

After some time there, Adcock then decided to move to the United States over 20 years ago with the prospect of having an easier time finding acting jobs.

Her English drama school training, however, led her to not only act alongside her cast mates, but also teach them with proper vocal techniques for acting.

“[The American actors I worked with] were losing their voice and wondering why I never did,” she said.

From there, she decided to start teaching professionally, because her age prevented her from getting many roles.

“They don’t write many parts for older women,” she said.

She brings the experience of a seasoned actress to her job at Pierce, as well as the practical lessons she learned when she was in training.