‘Open House’ continues through Saturday

Senior citizens can benefit from a free matinee performance of the slapstick comedy “Open House,” this weekend at the Valley Center Stage in North Bend.

Tickets are normally $12.50 for seniors at the playhouse’s 2 p.m. matinees, but at the afternoon show this Saturday, April 19, seniors get in for free.

Regularly priced performances are 8 p.m. Friday, April 18, and Saturday, April 19.

Director Gary Schwartz directs “Open House” with many local actors who’ve trod the boards at the theater. There are also some some fresh faces making their first appearance at Valley Center Stage (formerly Unity Theater). It’s about two lonely, eccentric elderly sisters who spend their days watching soap operas and quizzing each other with movie trivia. The play opens with the sisters having to deal with an overdue tax bill. There’s a ne’er-do-well son who lives in the basement. He sets a scheme in motion to swindle his mother and aunt out of the house by selling it with the help of his girlfriend. “Open House” brings a caravan of crazy characters to the door, including a stressed yuppie couple, a gay psychic and his lover, two extremely dumb burglars, and two equally dim police officers, with the IRS agent coming to the rescue.

Written by former Seattle copywriter Tom Donahoe, Open House has drawn comparisons to the Ealing Studio comedies of the ‘50s and is something of a cross between “Arsenic and Old Lace” and “The Golden Girls.”

The play is appropriate for children ages 13 and older.

Valley Center Stage is located at 119 North Bend Way, upstairs from the Singletrack cycle shop in downtown North Bend. Regularly priced tickets are $15 for adults and $12.50 for seniors and children. Make reservations at www.valleycenterstage.org or by calling (425) 831-5667.