YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU

Top: Carrie Lund, Chris Clavelli, David S. Howard and Jackie Schram star in “You Can’t Take it With You” playing at the Florida Repertory Theatre through Feb. 21. COURTESY PHOTOS “Everyone I know is reevaluating their lives and what’s important,” says Florida Repertory Theatre Producing Artistic director Robert Cacioppo. “Hopefully, some of that may come down to: What’s important is my family, and the people that I love, and the people that I spend time with, and not necessarily getting that newest, most expensive phone or buying that very expensive car.”

That’s why “You Can’t Take It With You” (running through Feb. 21) is Florida Rep’s current offering.

“I picked it now because of the recession of the fall of 2008. Obviously, we’re not out of it. Unemployment is really high, the stock market is not stable, and people are reevaluating what success is. The play very much asks that question: what is success, what makes someone happy? And I thought, my God, there’s never been a better time to do ‘You Can’t Take it With You.’

“I think audiences are going to feel that this could’ve been written yesterday, the arguments and what they talk about are so fresh and so real.”

This classic play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1937; the following year, it was made into a movie, directed by Frank Capra. It won the Academy Award for Best Picture of the Year.

The play tells the story of the Sycamores, an eccentric, free-wheeling, artistic family. The grandfather has quit his job and spends his time attending graduation ceremonies, listening to banal commencement speeches. His son-in-law hangs out in the basement, making fireworks, while his daughter paints and writes plays. (She began writing plays because one day, eight years ago, a typewriter was mistakenly delivered to the house.) She is terrible at both, but continues to write plays and paint. His granddaughter, Essie, studies ballet, but is actually a terrible dancer. Another granddaughter, Alice, is the only level-headed and conventional one. She falls in love with Tony, a banker’s son.

The cast of “You Can’t Take it With You” playing at the Florida Repertory Theatre through Feb. 21. COURTESY PHOTO The two families, as opposite as can be, plan to meet, because their children are engaged.

“We think they’re lunatics when we see this family, but as the outside world starts invading this family, we (think), who is crazy here? Are we crazy or are the Sycamores crazy?” Mr. Cacioppo says.

George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, whom Mr. Cacioppo calls “the greatest comic playwrights of the first half of the 20th century,” wrote “You Can’t Take It With You.” (Mr. Kaufman co-wrote two well-known Marx Brothers’ shows: “The Cocoanuts” and “Animal Crackers.”)

Both Mr. Kaufman and Mr. Hart, he says, came from eccentric families themselves, so they’re following the writer’s rule of thumb to “write what you know.”

The year the play opened on Broadway, in late 1936, things were difficult in the U.S.

“Unemployment was really high, times were really tough,” Mr. Cacioppo says. “But the play hit a nerve. It ran for 882 performances in the heart of the Depression. It spoke to a nation. Besides being funny, it spoke to a nation about what is important: let’s get our values straight. We all, on some level are reevaluating what is important to us.”

Though the play’s 75 years old, the humor still works, he says.

“It’s a funny play, a play whose humor is not dated.”

This is the third time Mr. Cacioppo’s directed “You Can’t Take It With You.” The first directed production was in 1995 with a community group of actors. Then in 2001, he directed a production at the Florida Rep with Niels Miller, Greg Longenhagen, Stephanie Davis and John Felix.

This year, he’s putting on the production as a vehicle for David S. Howard, who plays the grandfather. Mr. Howard’s well-known for his roles in Florida Rep shows such as “Tuesdays With Morrie,” “Visiting Mr. Green” and “Indian Blood.”

“One of the reasons I did this play is David Howard,” he says. “I wouldn’t have picked it without knowing I had a grandfather of that caliber. I think of everyone here, he is the most skilled actor in the Florida Rep ensemble, hands down. He makes it seem so easy. David is so understated. He always comes under and is so truthful. His skill levels are so high.”

Revisiting the play nine years later is revealing, he says.

“It’s amazing. I’m a different person than I was in 2001,” he says. “I had little kids then. I’m different than I was nine years ago, and I’m bringing a whole new set of values. I’m certainly more aware of the big picture in the world now at 52 than I was at 42. I’m a different person. I can’t believe the amount of discoveries I made that I never saw in the play before.”

Mr. Cacioppo considers the play a romance more than a comedy. “In real life,” he says, “good things don’t always come to good people. In a romance, in the end, good things come to deserving people. That’s one of the elements of a romance. In the end, they’re all deserving people, and good things come to them.”

The play, he says, deals with family, with what’s important in life. “Really core, basic questions,” he says. “That’s why 30 years from now, this play will still be important. It’s simply asking: what is success? Is it money? I think it’s feeling value, that you’re doing something of value, spending all your life doing something you enjoy. It’s feeling appreciated, getting that pat on the back, that touch, without it being saccharine. There’s a lot of touching in this family. There’s a lot of love.” 

if you go

>> “You Can’t Take It With You” When: through Feb. 21, with previews Feb. 3 and 4 Where: Florida Repertory Theatre, 2267 Bay Street, in the historic Arcade Theatre in downtown Fort Myers, between Hendry and Jackson Cost: $42 and $38, with preview tickets $25 and $20 Information: Call 332-4488 or go to www. floridarep.org