Photo by Kyle Head on Unsplash
By Brianna Zins, Staff Writer
The Susquehanna Department of Theatre staged a play focused on the lives of gay women in the Degenstein theater on Thursday Feb. 20, Friday Feb. 21 and Saturday Feb. 22 at 7:30 p.m. and on Sunday Feb. 23 at 2:30 p.m.
“Last Summer at Bluefish Cove” is set in the 1980s, a theme that is seen throughout, at a cottage on the beach. There are seven gay women who rent out the cottage every summer. The ladies are Lil Zalinski played by Ashlynn Cox, Kitty Cochrane played by Annabelle Lucas, Annie Joseph played by Mary Cote, Rae Joseph played by Grace Yurko, Rita Sanderson played by Chole Acquaviva, Donna Atterly played by Meredith Felix, and Sue McMillian played by Brittany Runk. Allison Steinert plays Eva Margolis, the straight woman and main focus of the play.
This summer seems the same as any other, until Eva Margolis rents out a cottage on the cove. She creates a lot of tension between the ladies, but quickly develops a passionate romance with Lil. Things start to go awry when Lil is revealed to have cancer that’s not getting better.
Even though she thinks that love has cured it, she finds out that she only has weeks to live. When she’s told to go back to chemotherapy, she throws a fit and declares that she’s “gonna go out a person, not a patient” and lives out her days how she wants.
The show appears as a tragic romance between two lesbians, but it goes deeper than that. “Lesbians are people, too,” Meredith Felix said, naming it as a major takeaway.
The play portrayed the very real struggles faced by a lot of people in the LGBT+ community during the the 1980s.
People who were anything other than straight were typically not accepted once they came out, and the play really shined a light on that. In one scene Lil, who’s mom had disowned her following her coming out, told Eva not to come out to her mom because she might end up like the rest of the girls.
For example, Rae, following her divorce, was not able to see her own kids and lost everything.
The costume choice for the play was unique, carefully picked out and symbolic of one thing or another. The primary color schemes came from the lesbian pride flag or were representative of something else, such as the disease that Lil had.
The lighting in the play was also very strategic and made it easy to tell where your attention was supposed to be so that the audience never missed anything. They were also bright yellow, so it seemed as though the sun was shining on the stage.
The way that actresses were able to get their characters across showed through the play, as well. They embodied their character in a way that made it appear as if these were real things happening to them.
Annabelle Lucas said of her character, “[she] has such love for the people around her, but expresses it in a mean way and showed the depth of humanity.”
Instead of just reading the pages off the book she was able to see the meaning behind them. Everyone in the play seemed to do this, and it really brought the play to life.