The Cliff’s Edge

By Emma Gift

Littleton High School’s spring production of The Cliff’s Edge was a brilliantly creative and witty performance. When I went to see it, I was not expecting to take as much from it as I did. As it was a student led production and script, one might assume that it would be predictable and simple. Not so. It was written and directed by seniors at LHS, as well as the actors were all from Littleton High School’s Senior Theatre Company, and tech was made up of students also. The costumes (chiefs Ð Alison Banowsky and Maggie Slack), sets (chiefs Ð Sam Golden and Kaylen Higgins, paint crew chief Ð Ben Lee, props Ð Doron Burks and Connor Jones), lights (chief Ð Patrick Severa), sound (chief Ð Leana McGregor) and makeup (chiefs Ð Teale Peck and Esther Lee) were phenomenal as usual, however what does make this particular play different from all the others LHS puts on? Everything was created, and accomplished primarily by students.

The Cliff’s Edge itself did not, in fact, even exist six months ago. This is because it was written by members of Littleton High School’s Senior Theatre Company: Ben Lee and Teale Peck. Following the trend, the director was Jeff Garland, and the assistant director was Danai Noftz, also members of Senior Theatre Company. This was astounding to me because the whole show was SO professional and clever. It blew me away. We are greeted in the opening scene by Sister Grave (played by Erica Emmelhainz) who is the wicked and sinister nun that runs an orphanage holding only one tenant, Neville (played by Ian Dawson).

Neville is a devout, and somewhat nervous little boy whose only friend is his uncanny, speaking toy doll, Feddlebund, who has conned Neville into trusting him and gets him into all sorts of trouble with Sister Grave who lives to punish little children. Violet, (played by Alison Banowsky) a spunky and outgoing little girl with a great British accent enters the scene after a while, as a new orphan and she and Neville quickly become close friends.

Suddenly, the scene switches to outside a theatre with Eddie, (played by George Kotelnikov) a wholesome and meek man who is waiting for his wife Norma (played by Mackenzie Merrick) with what seem to be his parents, but we find out a little later that they are actually Fisher’s parents. Fisher was a childhood friend of Eddie’s, whose life tragically ended after he died in a car accident when he was racing Eddie long before now. Fisher’s parents were Walter (played by Coty Dennis) and Martha (played by Maggie Slack) who are the typical sweet American parents, that seem to be taking on the role of Eddie’s parents and are slowly getting pulled into Eddie’s mindset of thinking that he’s Fisher.

We find out that Norma is directing a play called Feddlebund, a play that takes place at an orphanage holding only one tenant, whose name is Neville. Her sister, Liz (played by Kaylen Higgins) runs into Eddie, Walter and Martha while she’s cleaning up. Liz is a sarcastic, cynical girl that thinks Eddie’s crazy. Shortly after Liz leaves, Norma comes out to greet her three fans and tells them that they have to leave, for she has much too much work to do tonight. Then we switch back to the orphanage.

We left Violet and Neville playing with their dolls and Violet finds out she is going to be adopted by a very odd French couple that go by the names of Corinne, a snooty aristocratic woman (played by Emily Saggau) and Marcel a blind, fickle man (played by Michael Phelps). The couple insists on having a child that matches their furniture, walls, and dog. Violet mostly fits the bill, but they are forced to kill their dog because the two simply don’t match. Neville is livid that he won’t have playmate anymore and with the help of Feddlebund, he discovers that he loves Violet and in order to keep her here he must marry her as soon as possible. The play continues with constant switching from the “real world” to Feddlebund and vice versa. So it will be easier and less confusing for the reader, and for me to explain them one at a time.

The play Feddlebund concludes with Violet and Neville getting married by Feddlebund on a nearby cliff. This upsets Violet very much and she is NOT happy with this at all and Neville ends up accidentally stabbing her shortly after the deed is done, and Feddlebund pushes Neville off the cliff. In the Ôreal world’, the actor who plays Feddlebund convinces Eddie somehow to go on as Neville for the closing night of Feddlebund and Eddie forces Norma, at knifepoint, to appear as Violet. Once Norma realizes that Eddie is taking this too seriously and that both of their lives are in danger because Eddie has an actual knife, she tries to put a stop to it and Eddie eventually comes to his senses and pushes the actor who plays Feddlebund off the cliff.

There are a myriad of ways this play could be interpreted and that is what I LOVE about it. The fact that a group of high school seniors succeeded at pulling this off and writing something this complex and intense is beautiful. I came away from this play thinking that it wasn’t really the actor who played Feddlebund that convinced Eddie to play Neville, it was his inner conflict and guilt with himself that he wanted Fisher to die SO badly because he wanted to be better than him, and that alone is part of what killed him. So, symbolically when he pushed the actor off the cliff, he got rid of his conflict with himself and from that moment on, he was liberated to live his life freely.

This play has by far challenged my mind and confused me more than any other play, but it was so cool how things unraveled and became clear one by one, and how different things connected like they did throughout the play. I wanted to express this play with so many adjectives when I was thinking about how I would write the review, and I think that’s the sign of a great play. The tremendous amount of work that had to have gone into producing this play must have overwhelmed everyone but I was so pleased. Even though I was more than a little confused at intermission, I knew things would come together in act two.

I highly encourage people to go see more of Littleton High School’s student productions if they turn out to be half as good as this one. The acting was phenomenal; each and every person embraced their character so well. I wasn’t seeing Erica being Sister Grave, or Michael being Marcel, etc. I saw Sister Grave and Marcel. I can tell that all of the students involved in this play are so proud of it and it’s clear to see why. It was like nothing I have ever seen before and I certainly wasn’t expecting it. I couldn’t have seen anyone else playing Feddlebund, but Sam Golden, I also couldn’t have seen anyone else playing Martha but Maggie Slack and this went for all the characters.

In addition to being on stage, members of Theatre Company were also crew chiefs or on other crews. The chemistry between all of the members of the cast was exceptional and you could tell they knew each other really well and worked well together as well.

I give a huge round of applause to Jeffery Garland, Danai Noftz, Michael Phelps (the stage manager), and Ben Lee and Teale Peck for making this play happen and making it the best it could be. I predict that The Cliff’s Edge will be a highly noted play being portrayed by theatre companies all over the world. It’s truly a newfound success and only great things can come from this.