Fools by Neil Simon

“The brightest, freshest, funniest, wittiest, warmest and happiest to do on Broadway in many a day.” CBS-TV

A comic fable, Fools features a Ukrainian village, Kulyenchikov, that for 200 years has been cursed with stupidity. Like most folk-tale curses, this one can be lifted by the marriage of a young townswoman to the local count, or by the intervention of a hero who has 24 hours to successfully educate the same young woman. In this story, the hero’s name is Leon and the young woman is sweet, but not very bright, Sophia. 

Fools is a light-hearted play with ridiculous characters and Simon’s witty writing. Audiences will find themselves grinning and shaking their heads over the hijinks of the fools from Kulyenchikov. And yet, as silly as the play seems on the surface, at the play’s end we are left pondering questions like, what happens to a people when they believe a lie, and is education the answer to the world’s problems, and what role does love play in individual and community life?

Corban Theatre strives to worship God by presenting stories that justly depict God, truth, the human condition, healthy and unhealthy relationships, and good and evil. The Bible does not shy away from showing reality as it is rather than how we might want it to be, and neither do we shy away from telling stories that depict struggle, sin, and controversy, but we do so with an eye toward the redemptive power of Christ to transform our lives and to heal the world. 

We recognize that imagination and creativity are two characteristics we see in God from the Creation account forward. As image bearers, we all have an instinctive desire and compulsion to create, to appreciate beauty, to tell stories. We endeavor to be faithful stewards of our God-given creativity as we serve the playwrights, the play text, the directors, our fellow actors and our audience. We honor the imagination as a vehicle for communicating truth. We honor the medium of art. In beautifully unusual ways, it illuminates, enhances and broadens our understanding of God’s character and values.