With Valentine’s Day in the rearview mirror, the Stage Company is giving the final performances of a comedic take on love in the latter part of one’s life.

Neil Simon’s “Last of the Red Hot Lovers” began February 14 at the Varsity Center for Arts and will have its final performances this weekend. The play, set in the 1960’s, follows Barney Cashman, a 47-year-old married restaurant owner who feels as if he is missing out on the sexual revolution occurring around him. In a final effort to find meaning in his life, Cashman decides to pursue an extramarital affair to relieve him of his mid-life crisis.

In three acts, Cashman encounters three separate women with their own unique personalities and characteristics. Each encounter occurs in the living room of Cashman’s mother’s apartment.

Advertisement

Director Lee Brackett, who holds a day job as a financial consultant, said he began his work for the Stage Company in 2000 and has directed about 10 performances.

“The play is at times hilarious and poignant, ultimately proving to Barney that his life would be much worse if he had any of these women in it,” Brackett said.

Eric Billingsley plays the lead role of Barney Cashman.

“I approach the character as a real person, in a real situation, with real wants and desires and real dreams and the humor kind of emanates from that,” Billingsley said. “It’s an organic type of humor.”

Billingsley said he began performing in church plays when he was 7 or 8. He received his bachelor’s in theater from SIU and began doing shows with the company when he first started college.

However, working a full time job for the Blue Cross Blue Shield and performing shows can be very exhausting, he said, and Billingsley had not planned to audition for “Lovers.”

“Through a confluence of events I wound up coming forward to do the show,” he said.

Advertisement*

Shelley Hill plays the role of Bobbie Michelle, an unemployed paranoid “flower girl,” as Brackett describes the character. She began performing in 2011 with the company and after moving back to the area in 2009, she began performing after being influenced by her community theater-involved husband, she said.

Learning the lines plays a large role in understanding the character, Hill said.

“Only when I learn my lines can I learn to develop my character,” she said. “It is all a process.”

Hill said the Stage Company’s next season of plays has not been announced yet but she looks forward to performing in future plays.

“I’m hooked,” she said. “From the very first play in 2011 I’ve been completely hooked. I’m so grateful to have this community theater. I’m having so much fun with it. It’s great to be a part of.”

The company concludes its performances this weekend with shows 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2:00 p.m. Sunday. Tickets can be purchased at the Varsity box office.

Kyle Sutton can be reached at [email protected], on Twitter @ or by phone at 536-3311 ext. 254.