In a small town like Springville, home of the Villa Playhouse Theatre, community theater also usually focuses on familiar, family-friendly shows. It's a gentle comedy about a man, Elwood P. Dowd, whose best friend is a six-foot rabbit, Harvey, whom no one else can see. Elwood's sister, Veta Louise the socialite, wants to put him away in a sanitarium, but they wind up committing her instead, and lots of wackiness ensues.
Some elements are out-dated now, but overall the play has held up pretty well over the years.
Greg Peters is by far the best actor of the group. His Elwood is unfailingly polite, sweet, and simple, and yet he exists in a world where people are phony and full of ulterior motives. Maridell Pearson and Anita Adkins, as his sister and niece, are the first characters onstage, and once you get used to their particular styles of overacting and melodrama, the characters are actually rather endearing. At first you can't get past the unpolished acting form, but then it grows on you. As I said before, it becomes part of the charm.