If you want to be disappointed, watch the play Grapes of Wrath performed by the students of Cerritos.

Set yourself up for disappointment. Buy a $10 ticket (if you have your student ID with the Spring 2010 blue activity sticker), and go watch the play either Thursday, Friday, or Saturday at 8 p.m. or Sunday at 2 p.m.

Choose your poison. Choose what day you want to go watch the play and be disappointment because you are going to wish, better yet demand, that this play be longer.

You are going to be left wanting more; more of the play, more acts, more lighting effects, more sound effects, and especially more acting.

The cast of Grapes of Wrath does an outstanding job in its performance.

Everything from the accent to the emotion portrayal is excellent.

These actors are the very definition of what acting is and should be like.

Students Richard Martinez (Jim Casy) , Paul Martinez (Tom Joad), Felicia Buffington (Ma), and Dario Estrella (Pa) go beyond expectations and completely surpass the level of acting that is expected of a college student.

Their performances were amazing and made you believe you were watching a play from a professional acting company.

Those four students are destined for greatness in they decide to pursue their careers as actors.

The play revolves around the classic novel Grapes of Wrath written by John Steinbeck.

It takes place during the Great Depression in the 1930s in Oklahoma where dust bowls, created by droughts, forced families to lose their crops, therefore losing their profits, and forcing them to give up their homes to banks.

Ironically and cleverly enough, it is somewhat related to the circumstances that our nation is facing with the budget deficit.

The Theater department could not have chosen to perform this play at a more perfect moment when the audience can clearly relate it to the personal experiences they may facing themselves. 

The play is based on the journey that the Joad family takes from Oklahoma to California in its search of work opportunities and a better life.

The family experiences so many tragedies such as death, starvation, betrayal, heartbreak, and is even forced to leave some of its own members behind.

There is absolutely nobody else that can portray the characters and the emotions the family was feeling as well as the actors that did so in this play.

There are two scenes in particular that truly demonstrate how talented these students are.

The scene toward the end of the play where Rose of Sharon is in labor and the men are trying to build a ditch so that the water does not go through and destroy the place where they are living at full of incomparable acting skills.

While the men are building the ditch, you can feel the anguish, you can feel the anxiety, the need and the urgency to make sure they do it because they know that if it is not completed, their families will indeed die.

At the same time that is happening, Rose of Sharon, played by Flower Munguia, is in labor.

She is screaming, crying in pain, throwing her head back wishing the labor is over soon.

You could see it in her face, you could hear it in her screams, you could see it in her eyes that she was in terrible pain.

Both things were happening at the same time. You had to go back and forth and back and forth between actions but in both places the actors went all out and were determined to show the emotions required for that scene.

They put themselves in that family’s shoes. They displayed emotions that were so intense and so real that you would think they had gone through it themselves.

To be able to act out emotions that you have yet to experience, now that’s called talent.

There is also a banjo scene where the family participates in a dance with the rest of the folks they are living with.

The actors are so jolly with big smiles on their faces.

You could feel the energy they give off so much that it makes your feet tingle and want to get up and dance.

The play is overall excellent. The actors are beyond amazing and the fact that the it does not lose the genuine feeling of the book, is incredible.

You will definitely wish to see this play again and you will be left wanting more.