Sweet Charity

“Sweet Charity,” directed by Miriam Mills, had its first showing. “Sweet Charity” is a play that is conceived, staged, and choreographed by Bob Fosse. The play is about a woman named Charity who works as a hostess at a dance hall called The Fandango Ballroom. Charity is first seen as she is pushed into a lake by her boyfriend. She talks to her friends, Helene and Nickie, at her work about her boy troubles. We see Charity next meet a famous actor, Vittorio Vidal, who after getting into a fight with his girlfriend takes Charity out to dinner and dancing and then later back to his apartment after she faints. She tells her friends about she had been with Vittorio the night before which prompts the girls to have a discussion about wanting to do more with their lives. Charity then attends (or tries to) a seminar at the local YMCA where she meets her love interest, Oscar. We see them as good for one another until at the end of the play where she ends up in the lake again, but then she is okay with wanting to still make a better life for herself. Through all of this the playwright’s point is to show that no matter what your situation in life is, if you have a good outlook on life you can make a better life for yourself, and that you do not always need to rely on a man to make you happy.

The playwright shows this though Charity’s bubbly personality, which can be seen in the scene where her and Oscar are trapped in the elevator. She is calm and collected and to help Oscar she starts singing a song about telling yourself to be brave so that you can do anything. This illuminates the point of having a positive outlook on life can make all the difference. To contrast this however, in the same scene where Oscar and Charity are stuck inside the elevator, Oscar is panicking and can not seem to let go of his insecurities, which is also paralleled in him not being able to tell his support group he is shy, belonging to the “church of the month group,” and eventually not marrying Charity because of her past. The playwright also shows that Charity is able to carry on without the support of a man in the closing scene. Just as in the opening scene, Charity is pushed into the lake by a man she thinks is good for her and is going to make her life better. This time, Charity is able to pull herself out of the lake, unlike earlier, and she brushes herself off and stands up. She declares to the world (audience), “Watch out world, it’s me…Charity!” (or something to that affect). She also starts to sing again her “I’m the Bravest Individual” song again. This illuminates the playwright’s intent that if you believe in yourself, you can do anything, and that you do not need a man to help you.

I thought that the production team did an alright job with the play. One of the main things that bothered be about the production of the play was the scenic design. The scenic design appeared to be a simplified realism style. While this may have worked pretty well in the opening scene