This is part of an ongoing series of theater reviews of local high school productions, written by high school students, that will appear on AnnArbor.com. This week, Greenhills School's Katherine Krauss (see bio at end of story) reviews Skyline High School's production of "You Can't Take it With You," which ran this past weekend.

Written in a time when people went to the theatre to relieve themselves of their economic worries, Moss Hart and George Kauffman’s "You Can’t Take It With You" — which played this past weekend at Skyline High School — would seem to have much relevance to the problems on the mind of the world today.

The entirety of the show centers around Martin Vanderhof and his “patchwork” family, all of whom have decided quit the life of driven New Yorkers and live just for fun during the tail end of the Great Depression.

Vanderhof’s daughter, Penelope, writes plays and paints; her husband Paul and Mr. DePinna (previously the family's iceman) create fireworks; Essie dances and makes candy, while her husband Ed prints; and Martin himself collects snakes and attends college commencements. However, the “family”’s happiness is disturbed when Penelope and Paul’s daughter Alice falls in love with the son of one of the biggest brokers on Wall Street (Tony Kirby). Will the 2 families be able to reconcile their inherent differences and make Alice and Paul’s seemingly star-crossed love a reality?

Packed with timeless jokes and quirky characters, the script of the comedy itself will never age. But quite frankly, SHS tried to tackle a script that is awfully hard to put on for a non-professional company; the apparent “lack” of a plotline can make the play drag for both audience and actor. Yet there are still some remarkably funny characters — and when developed correctly, they can give the play entertainment value in and of themselves.

When I attended Skyline’s production Saturday night, however, I saw very few developed characters. The outlines were of them were there, but key elements were missing. For example, until I heard Essie (Heather Jue-Wong) had a husband, I assumed she was 7 years old, since she acted so young. In addition, both Alice (Mackenzie Kimball) and Tony (Seth Bear) could have used a broader variety of facial expressions and emotions.

The most universal missing element was volume. Some of the cast members, including Essie’s Russian dance teacher, Boris Kolenkhov (Tobias Mederer), did project loudly enough. Unfortunately, though, the theater was just too big for the near-muttering happening on stage.

The characters who did stand out to me last night were the supporting roles — the leads truly stood on the shoulders of giants. Jonathan Jue-Wong, playing Martin Vanderhof, did a fantastic job at cracking almost every 1 of his jokes with hilarity. Angie Goulet, as Mrs. Kirby, mother of Tony, developed her seemingly unimportant character with superb subtlety, also quite funny. The final performer who stood out to me was Freida Steiner, playing the Grand Duchess, who, like Goulet, took a small supporting role and let it shine. These small roles shone appropriately on a set that was meant for a professional theatre. The “multi-story” set was lavishly furnished and every detail was attended to. Bravo to technical director Anne-Marie Roberts and her tech crew.

As I have mentioned before, this professionally furnished space was filled with lead characters who were just too small for it. Whether this was a choice on the part of director Andy Seiler to mix up the usual leads and put them in smaller roles, or just the way it turned out, the lead characters were desperately in need of more development.

On a final note, the other thing that struck me was that the cast came out to greet the audience in their costumes after the show, breaking the audience’s illusion that they truly were a patchwork family of the 1930’s.

The aim of AnnArbor.com's student-review program is to recognize, and provide more coverage for, the accomplished theatrical work that's happening in our schools while also providing opportunities for student writers with an interest in arts criticism. To encourage objectivity, our student writers will always review shows from schools other than their own. To learn more about the student-review program, contact Jenn McKee at jennmckee@annarbor.com or 734-623-2546.