Sweet Charity just wants to be loved by David Ellis All Charity Hope Valentine wanted was to be loved. All she got was an endless string of boyfriends, heartbreaks, and unceremonious trips into the lake. “Sweet Charity” was the latest of playwright Neil Simon’s stage plays to be adapted by Seward County Community College’s drama department. In it, Charity (played by Jennifer Krause) attempted to meet the right guy and leave the life of a dance hall hostess behind in 60s-era New York. Unfortunately, since she fell in love on almost a nightly basis, she didn’t have much to show for her efforts. At least, she didn’t until she meets Oscar Lindquist (Wes Bryant), a rather insecure man with whom Charity found she had a lot in common. Suddenly, Charity’s dreams of starting a new life were within her grasp, to the dismay of her friends and coworkers at the Fandango Ballroom. This play had a lot of memorable moments. Charity found herself wading in a lake more than once during the course of the story, which provided Krause with opportunities to have fun playing a drowning person. In another scene (prior to meeting Oscar), she spent the evening getting to know a famous actor named Vittorio Vidal (Chris Tibbetts) … but wound up capping off the evening in his closet when the actor’s ex-girlfriend (Jessica Baca) attempted reconciliation. Charity’s first meeting with Oscar in an elevator was entertainingly neurotic, but my favorite scene by far was one of the couple’s subsequent dates: a visit to the Rhythm of Life Hippie Church, which consisted of pot-smoking Christian hippies led by Cool Daddy (James Byas) and Cool Momma (Annie Florez). Both the ’60s counterculture and religious movements were wonderfully parodied here, as the church members held services under a bridge and evaded the police. “Sweet Charity” was designed for mature audiences (or at least, people over the age of 16), which was easy to believe when the play involved drug use, sexual references, and frequent dance numbers involving scantily clad women. In fact, a few of the dance numbers left audience members wondering if they should toss money onstage. Ashley Crayne, Amy McNeel, Tammy Wardlaw, Sara Roehr, Sarah Rogers, Jessica Baca, Alex Garbutt, and Paige Tibbetts — who also provided the dance choreography — played the Fandango Ballroom dancers. One of the play’s shortcomings lay in the main character. While Charity was a wonderfully flawed individual, she ultimately fit the stereotype of most of Neil Simon’s female characters. Simon typically wrote ditzy women, and Charity’s characterization didn’t feel much different from the supporting female characters in Simon’s past plays. Giving one of them the starring role in a play subjected the audience to a character who constantly delivered well-intentioned-but-embarrassing lines, and who moved through the play as if she had only a minimal idea what’s going on. Jennifer Krause is a gifted actress, and played her part well, so the shortcoming didn’t lie with her. The character itself simply hit the glass ceiling of being a female Neil Simon character. In addition, the finale scene seemed to come out of nowhere, as Oscar made a revelation that seemed largely out of character. The script completely dropped the ball and caused more than one audience member to utter a confused, “huh?” The play then wrapped up in anticlimactic fashion. Overall, “Sweet Charity” was loaded with strong performances (even if some of the characters needed help), and director Frank Challis once again proved his ability to bring out his actors’ comedic talents. The play made for an entertaining two hours, though the musical numbers didn’t seem to be especially memorable (except for “If My Friends Could See Me Now”, which was already immortalized in commercials by Kathie Lee Gifford aboard a cruise ship). “Sweet Charity’ played April 11, 12, and 13 at the SCCC Showcase Theatre.