From romance to a ravishing comedy, all the way to an electrifying drama, the play “Mr. Perfect” gave the audience a powerful laugh and overall excitement when it premiered March 20 at the Florida Gulf Coast University TheatreLab in the Arts Complex.
The modern-day production directed by Barry Cavin had seven outstanding casts who each got deep into their character when it came to acting.
“One of the biggest thrills of doing university theater is seeing how a student actor starts the process and then seeing the end product,” Cavin said. “They all worked hard and learned a great deal, and I hope they’ll take what they learned to other shows in the future. I can say that each one of them was brave, adventurous, strong and focused and because of that, they turned in a show that the audience loved.”
The play was an overall success.
“Most of our shows were at or near capacity, so I’m extremely pleased with the attendance,” Cavin said. “We get a lot of support from students and from our local community.”

The play consists of five main settings. The first is an airplane where Zooey, a corky flight attendant who is a hopeless romantic, coincidentally meets Jeffery, a stereotypical guy who voices romantic audio books that Zooey happens to listen to and bases her idealized Mr. Perfect on. The next are the streets of New York where most of the characters coincidentally run into each other, a fake church owned by a “priest” and Zooey’s apartment. The other two main characters included the priest and Donna.

“Mr. Perfect” fits best with its title. Let’s face it, almost every girl or guy in todays modern society wants a Mr. or Mrs. Perfect, and almost every person tries to aim for overall perfection in todays culture, whether it deals with work, education or even social status. Just like the play, I believe this romantic comedy is a production that almost anyone could relate to. Each character had a peculiar aspect that made them hilarious.
“This particular play is a comedy, and I hope there aren’t any real FGCU students like the ones on our stage,” Cavin said. “You’ve got a want to be Mr. Perfect, a worn out grad student, a jaundiced self-help guru and a manic- pixie-dream-girl who wants to live inside a romance novel.”
Each character was bizarre, which made them and the production hilarious. What made Zooey’s character unique was her dramatic attitude of wanting her Mr. Perfect and forcing every little coincidence with romance when it wasn’t necessarily a coincidence of true love.

Melissa Cardenas, who did a fantastic job, acted the anomalous character of Zooey by acting unrealistic with every aspect of the show by using her vivid emotions.

Jeffery, acted by Nuniez Philor, was a character who in my perspective was the most idealized and realistic character. He reminded Zooey that not everything is about finding the perfect man or perfect romance, and that sometimes coincidences can just be coincidences and nothing else, or sometimes things can fall into place accidently without forcing the situation.
Philor did an outstanding job of playing his role by maintaining a character that is a confused, typical young adult who is just going with the flow in every day life. Two other goofy characters who I also liked were the priest — played by Adrian Serrano, who did an outstanding job being someone who liked to lie and be silly with unrealistic things; and Donna — played by Tyler Layton — a romantic novelist who is so unromantic that it contradicts her character of being a romantic author.
Another thing I found interesting is that the director incorporated during the play three transition performers played by Austin Nugent, Daniel Cancio and Lea Middleton. The transition performers altered each setting and made the play funnier because they added hilarious small acts between scenes that had the crowd laughing even more.

Having a black box theater was my favorite aspect of the play because the setting was more intimate and even felt more personal. The audience was super close to the characters, which made the play more relatable. Because the black box theater is so intimate, it grabbed the audience’s attention more.

The whole concept of “Mr. Perfect” has a great theme of sometimes letting life take its course rather than forcing every little plan or situation. The theme made me realize that I should take life day by day and enjoy every little minute, especially the unexpected ones, because those can be the best moments of life.
The ending was my favorite part of the play because although most of the play was suppose to be silly, the ending was a moment of seriousness that brought not only the characters of the play together but the audience as well.

“The one thing that I want from each project is that [it’s] good theater,” Cavin said. “Now there’s too much to unpack behind that statement, but what’s most important is that the audience leave feeling that they have had an experience that could not be replicated in a movie or on a couch. What I don’t want is for people to feel that they seen it all before. Theater should be vital, immediate, challenging and new.”
If you didn’t get the chance to see the astonishing and successful production of “Mr. Perfect” at FGCU, don’t miss out on the next couple productions appearing next semester: “XanadU,” Oct. 1-11; “The Mansion at Hangman’s Bog” by Barry Cavin, Feb. 19-28; and “The 39 Steps” by Patrick Barlow, April 8-17.