Miss Amalia Balash, played by Amaya Castillo- Mills, sits next to Mr. Sipos, played by Kevin Cullen. @PLAYERSMU / INSTAGRAM
Barbara Vasquez & Leyla J. Mercado, Production / Web Editor and Arts & Entertainment Editor
Manhattan University Players’ fall mainstage had their opening night on Nov. 14, with shows throughout the weekend. The cast performed “Parfumerie”, written by Miklόs László.
Directed by Martin Marchitto, the production tells the story of workers in a perfumery, set in 1937 Budapest, just a few weeks before Christmas. The owner of the shop, Mr. Hammerschmidt, played by junior Eamon McShane, deals with one of his employees’ affairs with his wife– except, he doesn’t know exactly which employee it is, and ends up blaming the wrong one. Mr. George Horvath, the falsely accused employee, is going through his own trials and tribulations in the story. For the past two years of his life, he’s been exchanging romantic letters with an unknown pen pal and falling in love with her along the way. The pen pal ends up being revealed as his coworker, Miss Amalia Balash, who he’s constantly bickering with – which kickstarts the central plot of the story.
The Quadrangle met with members of the cast to further discuss the creation of their mainstage.
Kevin Cullen, a senior English major with a minor in theatre, took on the role of Mr. Sipos in the production, a comedic character who acted as a voice of reason throughout the play. He also serves as the Players’ executive producer, and had a role in choosing the production. Cullen discussed what led the Players to decide on bringing Parfumerie to the mainstage.
“I think there’s a lot to like about Parfumerie,” Cullen said. “It’s a comedy, and it’s very light in terms of what it’s got going on. On top of that, it has a very large cast … It’s got a decent sized amount of principle characters while also having a smaller room for those customers, so it allowed more people to be a part of it. I think that was a big reason why we were leaning towards it … For the group, Parfumerie was a much better option.”
Marchitto also spoke to his particular vision for Parfumerie with The Quadrangle, and shared more about when he witnessed his vision come to life.
“From the start, I knew I wanted the acting to be very naturalistic.” Marchitto wrote in an email to The Quadrangle. “I knew I wanted the audience to feel as if they were peeking into a real place with real people. This led me to design the set in a thrust, allowing the audience on all three sides. I also knew that I wanted to set the play within historical context and to establish the time of year. For this, I asked the sound designer Marley [Saal] to use Christmas songs from the 1930’s to set the time of year, and our dramaturge Kevin Cullen to create the news update, bringing the contrast of what was happening in the world in this pre WWII era.”
For Cullen, keeping the integrity of his character while also adapting to the unique dynamics of each interaction with his castmates was the focus of portraying Mr. Sipos.
“When it comes to that, you want to think about how the character’s relationship is with everybody,” Cullen said. “It helps a lot to establish what you think of each person. The only character that Sipos actively dislikes is Mr. Kadar [the affair partner to Mr.Hammerschmidt’s wife], and I think I did my best to convey that, especially because there’d be huge tonal shifts.”
Cullen’s character showed a more caring side towards the main couple of the story, Mr. George Horvath and Miss Amalia Balash, despite their turbulent relationship with each other. Amalia was played by junior health studies major Amaya Castillo-Mills, who originally auditioned for her role due to the eccentric nature of the character.
“I had only known the musical, which was really cute and romantic, and I wanted to do something like that,” Mills said. “In the musical, she’s very flip-floppy. She’s mad one second, then she’s very happy talking to somebody else, and then she’d have a big moment where she’s like ‘oh my gosh, you hate me, I hate myself’ and things like that. I just really wanted to challenge myself to do something like this, where it’s all of these different emotions at once.”
Mr. George Horvath, played by James Cullen, a senior marketing major at MU, was Amalia’s romantic partner in the show and often the subject of her anger and frustrations. However, in the first act, it’s comedically revealed to Horvath that Amalia has been the woman he’s fallen in love with. This revelation was the reason Cullen decided to take on the role of Horvath in the production.
@PLAYERSMU / INSTAGRAM
“I originally didn’t want the lead because it seemed like a lot of work,” Cullen said. “Then I read the script and saw all the stuff I liked [in Horvath]. That moment in the play where he realizes he’s been writing letters to Miss Amalia – that was my favorite. I read that, and I knew exactly how I wanted it to look.”
Marchitto shared Cullen’s vision for the character, and once he saw Cullen and Mills together, knew he had made his decision for the leads.
“The relationship between Amalia and George needs to appear to be able to come across disliking each other, and then through the course of the show, become the “perfect” couple,” Marchitto wrote. “There were several strong men and women reading for these roles, but one couple, Amaya and James, were able to bring this to life.”
Marchitto spoke further about the play being especially meaningful due to the students behind the production.
“This experience will remain one of my top five shows,” Marchitto wrote. “The reason for this is because I did not feel as if I was working with a bunch of students, but instead as if we were a team of professionals collaborating to bring this piece to life…Every student involved was committed to a higher standard, and for this I am very blessed!”
The Players recently announced Into the Woods as their spring semester mainstage, and The Lost Sheep, directed by James Cullen, as the spring student slot. For more updates on the MU Players, follow their Instagram page @playersmu.