It’s always a treat seeing Sock & Buskin perform, since the company consistently produces high quality community theatre for central PA. Seeing their production of Stefanie Austin’s The Final Rose was particularly interesting for me, because—by way of full disclosure—I participated in a late stage readthrough of the script and provided feedback on how Stefanie could revise it heading into the production itself. But even without that background, the production, directed by Henry Morello, was a hilarious evening.

The Final Rose is set during the taping of the last episode of The Catch, a Bachelor-style dating show, in which Brad Masters will have to choose between Southern girl-next-door Kelly Dixon and upper-class socialite Miranda Carter. The problem is that, instead of loving either of them, Brad has fallen in love with the harried production manager Rebecca Cook. Their affair threatens to derail the show and Rebecca’s career. At the same time, Rebecca’s assistant Carrie Reynolds keeps finding notes threatening to bomb the show if it isn’t cancelled. Plus, the sleazy host Wes Gold is having his own affair with Miranda, while also hitting on Brad’s mom Colleen—between eating peanut butter sandwich after peanut butter sandwich. When it’s discovered that Miranda has been murdered, detective Robin and her daughter Olivia (it was take-your-daughter-to-work day at the police station) turn to the audience for help finding the killer. In the interval, the characters circulated around the tables to answer questions about their possible role in the killing and any possible motives. The last portion of the show features the revelation of the killer, which I won’t spoil.

As always with Sock & Buskin, the acting in this show was very good across the board. This is nothing less than I would expect with some veteran S&B actors, like Stefanie Austin (playing Rebecca), David Smith (Wes Gold), and Sela Plummer (Kelly). Of the various new S&B actors, I was particularly impressed by Jace Beaton, who perfectly evoked the sarcastic, dark, charmingly menacing Carrie, constantly critiquing the show’s anti-feminist ethos, joking about poisoning the seedy host of the show, and snickering at the absurd lengths the contestants go to to get Brad’s (Connor Heimerman) attention. Heimerman’s Brad was an interesting take on the character. Less of the suave, charming lady’s man, Heimerman gave us a more genuinely nice Brad, seeking actual love and quite uncomfortable with the dating show’s structure of dating, assessing, and disposing of people. This presentation made Brad as a human being more admirable that they typical dating show bachelor comes across, which helped invest the audience more in his relationship with Rebecca.

But when it comes to acting, I would be entirely remiss if I didn’t mention the perhaps surprising star of the show, J. Lance Wilkinson’s Bob, the camera operator. I’ve seen Wilkinson in other shows, so I already knew he’s a great performer. But, based on the script itself, Bob is a virtual non-entity. He has no actual lines, and even when Wilkinson circulated around the tables to answer audience questions, he mimed and gestured rather than speaking. Despite the complete absence of dialogue, Wilkinson’s performance was so hilarious, so engaging, and so effective that he was clearly one of the most popular characters. On the night I saw the play, there were several people who explicitly cheered for Bob when, for instance, he stood and applauded Carrie’s feminist critique of The Catch late in the show.