'Pillow Talk' shows Othello talent

OTHELLO — You’d never guess that “Pillow Talk” was the first play Othello High School senior Israel Gonzalez has ever acted in.

Because watching Gonzalez play the role of composer and ladies man Brad Allen was a little bit like seeing and hearing a very young Jon Hamm play a very young Don Draper, the lead character from the AMC series “Mad Men.”

“My brother and I watched a lot of ‘Mad Men’ to prepare for this role, and he had a lot of influence on how I played it, the way he spoke, and his poise,” Gonzales said after the final performance on Saturday.

“It felt really, really natural,” he added.

Gonzales said he plans to continue pursuing theater studies and act in community plays at either Eastern Washington University or Washington State in Pullman.

Tom Christiensen, a teacher of theater arts at Othello High School and advisor to the school’s Drama Club, said a lot of the talent Gonzalez displayed was innate, a gift the 17-year-old senior brought as a first-time performer.

“Pillow Talk” was a 1959 film starring Doris Day and Rock Hudson about single interior decorator Jan Morrow and her struggles with composer and playboy Brad Allen over their shared telephone “party line.”

Allen and Morrow eventually fall in love, but only after Morrow pretends to be a wealthy Texas cattleman and Morrow garishly redecorates the rakish composer’s apartment.

“I love the movie, and I love the characters, and I thought it would be a good fit for my students,” Christiensen said.

But the film, set almost 60 years ago, required the kids to learn about the technology of the era — rotary dial telephones, operator-assisted phone calls and the multi-phone party line central to the conflict between the two lead characters.

“There was a lot of pop culture history they needed to understand,” Christiensen said. “Mostly they were very curious.”

Other stunning performances included 17-year-old senior Edith Ruvalcaba as Alma, Morrow’s wise-cracking maid. Ruvalcaba, who has been acting since she was a sophomore and said she hopes to major in music in college, added she enjoyed working on the New York accent she affected for the character of Alma.

“She’s more outgoing than how I usually am, and that was nice,” she said.

And longtime performer, 17-year-old senior Cristian Garza, turned in a solid performance as Jonathan Forbes, Morrow’s millionaire client (and the backer of Allen’s show) who unsuccessfully tries to woo and marry her.

“I love the family aspect of theater, that there are people who care for you,” Garza, who plans on studying veterinary medicine in college. “I will continue to act, I love drama and music.”