DeKalb High School students will perform Kaufman and Hart’s 1930 play, “You Can’t Take It With You,” on Nov. 8 through 11.   

This zany comedy relates what happens when an engaged couple, Alice and Tony, invite both of their families to meet each other for dinner at Alice’s home. Alice’s middle-class loving, but eccentric family, encourages creativity and wants everyone to pursue what makes them happy. Tony’s father is a wealthy banker and his mother a snob, who both disapprove of the engagement. When Tony’s family arrives for a dinner a night early, the two distinct families encounter each other and their very different ways of living and social standings.  

This play reflects some of the cultural differences between a wealthy family, a middle class family, and how the help relates to the middle class family and their wealthy guest in 1930. While presented with humor, this play portrays how different cultures and groups have different values, beliefs, and rules about how people should act and live.