The Hillel Theater Group, led by director Suri Ellerton '10, performed Neil Simon's Fools last weekend in the Carl J. Shapiro Theater in the campus center. The play, not ranked among Simon's more well-known comedies, such as The Odd Couple and Barefoot in the Park, makes use of a steady barrage of non sequiturs and malapropisms to present a social commentary about the use, importance and definition of knowledge and its relevancy to love.The story is about a young and overzealous Russian schoolteacher named Leon who finds his way to the town of Kuyenchikov to educate the citizenry in such subjects as philosophy, astronomy, mathematics and history. What he soon realizes is that the citizenry is composed of individuals who cannot formulate a single logical thought. The men and women are under a curse of eternal stupidity and ignorance cast upon the village before they were born by Vladmir Youskevich, whose illiterate son killed himself after his lover's disapproving father prohibited her from ever seeing him.

Because of this town's unique situation, Leon's initial task of educating the students becomes a heroic mission to lift the curse and with it the veil of ignorance shrouding the entire populace. What ensue are struggles of love with the doctor's daughter, Sophia, who entrances Leon with her beauty and her-let's call it simplicity-and power, having to do with the megalomaniacal Count Youskevich. Leon must educate Sophia within 24 hours in order to lift the Youskevich curse or, supposedly, fall victim to the curse of stupidity himself (the latter consequence was just a foolish myth that would never actually come to fruition).

Throughout his stay, Leon also engages in multiple exchanges with some of the other villagers, such as Snetsky, the old, hunchbacked shepherd, who is constantly searching for two dozen lost sheep ("All 14 of them," he claims), Slovich, the idiot butcher (spelled "bucher"), Mishkin, the confused postman, and Magistrate, the magistrate who serves virtually no purpose.

Here's a sample of the tomfoolery involved in every discourse among the people of this village:

Butcher: Do I have any mail?

Postman: No, I'm the postman, I have all the mail.

Here's another: In this exchange, the doctor is diagnosing the magistrate:

Doctor: Would you like a prescription?

Magistrate: What for?

Doctor: I don't know. Some people like prescriptions. Here, take this to the druggist, pick out something you like, and take it three times a day with a little water.

Beck Holden '08, who played Leon, did an excellent job of conveying deep confusion and frustration in the midst of the hopelessly illogical town. He shouted most of his lines, which, as a whole, was an appropriate delivery style but got exhausting after the first act. In fact, his delivery largely consisted of stand-and-declaim, which did not make his conversations with other characters seem like actual conversations, but rather forceful speeches in which he would fervently rattle off his own thoughts, sometimes not addressing anyone in particular, offering proclamations to the audience. This, however, did not detract from the character illusion; he was still rather convincing.

However, Avram Mlotek '09, who played Dr. Zubritsky, was a cut above all of the other players. His performance was not at all contrived as he made use of facial expression and subtle gesticulation to execute a professional level of comedic timing. This, and the fact that he delivered the cleverest lines of the play in his pseudointellectual intonation, made him a thoroughly entertaining actor.

Coretta Garlow '10, the actress who played the doctor's wife, Lenya, played an equally convincing ignorant fool. The majority of her lines, however, were satirically incisive, injecting brief commentaries on gender disparity. She was one of the few actors who could sound idiotic and profound at the same time.

The rest of the cast was mediocre. With the caliber of writing of Fools it was impossible for the actors not to be at least a little funny, even if their acting was not all that convincing. Line after line, the play delivered a volley of Leslie Nielsenesque wordplay, drawing hearty laughter from the audience. However, as foolish as the play appears, it does raise profound questions about how we conceive knowledge. It asks viewers to consider whether knowledge simply lies in what is widely accepted, in the thoughts and theories of others or whether there is something to be said for creating one's own set of values. What warrants true knowledge, and what is the result of too much knowledge? Fools is a play about questioning what we believe is true and rising above the limitations and fears imposed upon us by tyrannical forces.