Ken, Glen and Lenny, Chris, Claire Cassie and Cookie a set of names that’s bound to cause confusion. That’s exactly what happened as the Cerritos College theatre department and the associated students presented their production of Neil Simon’s “Rumors.”

Set in Hollywood California, the play opened to find married couple Chris and Ken Gorman, (Diane Christensen and Geronimo Guzman) at an anniversary party being held by Charley Brock, a wealthy deputy mayor and his wife Myra.

Soon after their arrival the pair discover that Myra is nowhere to be found and Charley is suffering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the ear.

Since Charley, the host who is sadly never seen, is in his bedroom drugged up on valium and cannot speak, the Gormans must fabricate a story to explain the absence of the suspiciously missing couple to their arriving guests.

This is where the plot thickness.

Rumors, accidents, sarcasm, and high jinx run rampant as the party guests, who include: married couples Claire and Lenny Ganz (Amber Sneed and David Carreiro), Ernie and Cookie Cusack (Danny Perez and Leslie Burdick) and Glen and Cassie Copper (Joseph Wise and Claudia Aicardi), all try to unravel the real story behind the couples disappearance.

Guzman’s accident, Chirstensens and Sneeds jokes, Carreiro’s sarcastic remarks and Burdick’s back spasms provided comedic relief while Wise and Aicardi brought the drama of a soap opera to the production with their martial problems.

Although the play was funny and entertaining, at times it was confusing.

The similarly sounding names were hard to keep up with and the fast pace of the story left the audience suffering from whiplash as they jerked their head from side to side trying to keep up with the actors/actresses who strangely never remained stationary for more than three minutes.

But despite the chaos, the play’s cast made Rumors an enjoyable experience.

Rumors was presented in the Burnight theatre April 26-28, and May 3-4.