The Shadow Box, CSU Summer Stages

It is a Buddhist concept that, in order to live each day fully, one must consciously carry an awareness of death. While that may seem like a bummer to most of us, it can actually be oddly freeing. This perhaps explains why so many people with terminal illnesses profess that they have never felt so alive.

That is one of the many truths lurking in The Shadow Box by Michael Cristofer, now playing at CSU Summer Stages. Written in the 1970s, and the winner of both a Tony and a Pulitzer, the play has not aged particularly gracefully.

Compared to contemporary works about this morbid topic, the characters here often seem too conveniently predictable and the dialog at time almost painfully didactic. But a talented director, Everett Quinton, and a more than capable cast manage to wrest the play from some of the playwrights less than felicitous structures and phrasings.

There are three groups of people in residence at a hospice in the woods for terminal cancer patients. Their sharing of a common fate is expressed nicely in the set, which has them walking through each other’s rooms and spaces while only interacting with their own friends and loved ones.

In one cabin, blue collar Joe is welcoming the arrival of his wife Maggie and teenage son Steve (Charles Hargrave), who have come to stay with him in his declining days (although Steve knows nothing of the seriousness of his dad’s condition). In another, garrulous and philosophical Brian and his younger partner Mark are living out his last days when Brian’s wild and crazy ex-wife Beverly arrives. And in the third, elderly, crotchety Felicity and her grown daughter Agnes are bickering and hanging on.

Some of these folks are interviewed by a hospice staffer, who seeks information about their feelings and so forth. This rather plausible construct unfortunately provides the playwright an opportunity to ramble on at length about his life-death philosophies, many of which have been stated better and more succinctly elsewhere.

However, the play crackles with energy when the characters are allowed to bounce off each other. Ursula Cataan is marvelous as Maggie, a down-to-earth gal who just can’t accept the fact of her husband Joe’s imminent demise. Equally fine is Tom Woodward as Joe, and their scenes together are the highlight of the show.

As Brian and Beverly, Greg Violand and Story Comeaux show off their acting chops. But director Quinton allows them to torque their attacks a half turn too far, so that Brian seems a bit too joyful and vibrant for a man in his condition, and Beverly goes over the line from free-spirited to free-to-all-comers. Mark (a mostly believable Randy Muchowski) fills in his back story as a prostitute who fell in love with his trick Brian. This trio’s climactic scene, a confrontation between Beverly and Mark, seems a bit overdone and needlessly melodramatic.

Felicity and Agnes are the quietest pairing, and Agnes is subjected to an exquisite bit of mental torture when the interviewer (Justin Steck) forces her to face a truth about her actions. Lydia Chanenka is a mess of hostility and delusion as Felicity, and Denise Astorino suffers with passive grace as Agnes.

Although there are better, more elegant plays about death and dying (to wit, Wit), The Shadow Box still has things worth saying. And this production, for the most part, says them with style.

The Shadow Box
Through August 9 (or so),
1833 East 23rd Street,
216-687-2113

Return to the Forbidden Planet, CSU Summer Stages

When you set out to have some campy fun on stage, it’s a good idea to hark back to the 1950’s, when damn near everything was hilarious. And that’s what CSU Summer Stages is doing with their production of Return to the Forbidden Planet.

A jukebox musical based on the 50’s flick Forbidden Planet, Return was written by Bob Carlton and is being given a furiously energetic production at the CSU Factory Theatre. Even though there are singing and other glitches evident throughout, the manic staging by director Michael Mauldin eventually wins one over.

With the playwright borrowing liberally from Shakespeare’s The Tempest (on which the original flick was based) and his other works, the dialogue in Return ranges from elegant to glibly idiotic. And since it’s all played for maximum fun and minimum reflection, it all seems appropriate.

Cast members interact with the audience pre-show, checking their programs as if they were boarding passes and warning about tray tables and such. And once the “starship” takes off, the audience is also called upon to help with certain functions, such as helping to reverse the polarity of, well, something.

Clearly, the large cast has a blast with this fluffy material about a journey to a planet inhabited by a reclusive wizard and his beauteous daughter. It is also studded with many familiar pop hit songs from the ‘50s and ‘60s. However, the musical content cuts both ways in this staging, since a few of the younger actors have some trouble carrying a tune.

But they are helped enormously by those who can, specifically Tracee Patterson as Gloria who rips it up with “It’s a Man’s World” and “Go Now,” Greg Violand as Prospero who brings surprising gravitas to “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” and John Paul Soto as a robotized Ariel, whose “Who’s Sorry Now?” features a semi-comatose turn by Patterson that is a marvel of rubber-limbed dexterity. Also, Lawrence Charles as Cookie turns in a purposeful rendition of "She's Not There."

Thanks to director Mauldin’s inventive staging, there is hardly a dull moment, as at least a few of the actors (inevitably) try out their William Shatner impressions and plenty of them get to dance, run and fall down a lot. But this frenzy of action sometimes gets a bit too loose, and the show at times takes on the appearance of an acting improvisation rather than a tightly-knit camp parody.

And some small details are not attended to. For instance, when the male crew members back up Captain Tempest (a nicely dim Lew Wallace) in one song, their casual approximation of back-up group moves doesn’t do comedic justice to the precision of, let’s say, the Pips.

Naturally, there is only so much of wacky fun that one can tolerate in a show like this. And at more than two hours with an intermission, Return to the Forbidden Planet stretches that limit to the breaking point. But it’s hard not to like a show where Prospero reappears later as Ghoulardi (even without a single “Stay sick, knif!” or “ Ova-dey!”) to lead the company in a gloriously irrelevant version of “Monster Mash.”

Return to the Forbidden Planet
Through August 9 (or so),
CSU FactoryTheatre,
1833 E. 23rd St., 216-687-2113

Little Shop of Horrors, Beck Center

(Timothy Allen as Seymour, holding the not-yet-gigantic Audrey II, along with the Urchins, left to right: Katrice Monee Headd, Taresa Willingham, and Tonya Broach.)

It's no surprise that Little Shop of Horrors, now at the Beck Center for the Arts keeps showing up on stages here and there, since it features a man-eating plant, a sadistic dentist, and a nerd who finds success by becoming the meat-procurer for said botanical fiend. Hey, what else do you need for a successful theatrical evening?

Even though the book and lyrics by Howard Ashman and the music by Alan Menken is uneven, with some songs like “Da-Doo” being quite extraneous, the singing in this production is more than passable. Indeed, whether crooning in the style of Motown or presenting their stereotype parts, the Beck players do their jobs well individually. But the evening as a whole lacks comic cohesiveness due to beats being rushed or not adequately shaped. As a result, the fun seems scattershot and, when it happens, a bit threadbare.

Seymour is the nerd who works side-by-side with hot Audrey in Mr. Mushnik’s florist shop. But the dork rises suddenly to local fame when a plant he’s been tending, named Audrey II, starts to draw the attention of passersby, along with the media.

Trouble is, his ferocious fern has a hankering for fresh plasma instead of Miracle-Gro. And once his fingers have been drained, he has to look elsewhere for Audrey II’s dinner. That’s when the (human) Audrey’s abusive boyfriend, leather-clad and pain-freak dentist Orin, enters the picture as a potential entrée.

Timothy Allen is the very embodiment of a dweeb, looking like a taller Woody Allen and somehow affecting a posture that seems to be in a perpetual cringe. He's in love with Audrey, played by Meg Maley with just the right amount of blonde ditz mixed with tenderness. And as Orin, Connor O’Brien breaks out of his usual bland leading man box to craft a laughing sadist (he sniffs his own nitrous oxide) with a thick overlay of Elvis. O’Brien takes some chances with his over-the-top role, most of which succeed.

Unfortunately, director William Roudebush allows too many scenes to play flat. This kind of comedy demands sharp beat changes, some extended pauses for comic effect, and energetic interchanges. In this production, too many moments—such as the first appearance of Orin and the first cry for food from Audrey II—pass by with little edge.

The centerpiece of the show, literally and figuratively, is Audrey II. And while the puppet created for the role here is (eventually) impressive in size, it lacks enough flexibility to really take advantage of many potentially humorous opportunities. As the voice of the plant, Darryl Lewis could also inject more personality into his songs and patter.

One constant positive are the singing urchins, modeled after The Supremes. Katrice Monee Headd, Tonya Broach and Taresa Willingham sing powerfully and addsome zip to scenes that need it.

In sum, this Little Shop is several well-crafted performances in search of a tighter and more finely honed production.

Little Shop of Horrors
Through August 2 at Beck Center,
17801 Detroit Avenue,
Lakewood, 216-521-2540

As You Like It, Ohio Shakespeare Festival

(Joy Marr as Rosalind and Ernie Gonzalez as Touchstone. Photo by Phil Kalina.)

If you’ve ever wished that a Shakespeare production could somehow be outfitted with annotations and footnotes, to help you understand what’s going on at every moment, there’s a much easier (and more enjoyable) alternative. Just sit in the audience while the Ohio Shakespeare Festival is performing.

As supervised by artistic director Terry Burgler, each OSF outing is a marvel of clarity and precision, rendering even the most obtuse digressions by Will suddenly comprehensible. The result is a kind of euphoric time travel in which one feels transported back 400 years to the Globe Theatre, relishing all of the bard’s words with immediate glee just as his audiences did then.

As You Like It is the most recent example of OSF magic, splendidly directed by Jason Marr who also takes the lead part of Orlando. Buoyed by one of Shakespeare’s wittier scripts, and anchored by the famous “Seven Ages of Man” speech, this staging nicely captures the playwright’s satirical take on the “nobility” of country life (take that, Sarah Palin) and the sublime vagaries of romantic love.

Rosalind and Celia, being the daughters of battling brothers Duke Senior and Duke Frederick respectively, form the keystone of this play. Joy Marr is exceptional as Rosalind, both as close girlfriend and confidant of Celia, and when disguised as a boy out in the Forest of Arden. She is almost matched by Tess Burgler, whose Celia is not as simple and innocent as she is often portrayed.

In another feisty brother act, Orlando chafes under the rule of his elder brother Oliver, until Orlando’s unexpected victory in a wrestling ring with Oliver’s goon sets him on a liberated course. Jason Marr fashions a delightful Orlando that is by turns combative, perplexed and swooning with love for Rosalind. His second act scene with the cross-dressed Rosalind is a gem of verbal thrust and parry.

The fool Touchstone is played by Ernie Gonzalez, an actor who can do no wrong with the audience. Speaking in a plain manner that suits his down-to-earth character, Gonzalez triggers much laughter with deft stage business and an expressive face that speaks volumes when he is silent. Terry Burgler adds to the fun as the melancholic Jacques, who aspires to be a fool, and Geoff Knox as the ambiguously fey Le Beau. Also excellent are Eric Lualdi as Sylvius, the love-struck shepherd, and Amelia Britton as Phoebe, his reluctant objet d’amour.

Employing a lot of eye contact with the audience, an OSF trademark, the players coax even the most reluctant audience members into the Shakespearian fold. And they are held there by the company’s insistence on crafting even the smallest characters with detail (to wit, Henry C. Bishop’s amusing shepherd Corin and Courtney Vatis’s lusty wench Audrey, the apple of Touchstone’s eye).

As it happens, the outdoor lagoon setting on the Stan Hywet estate is the perfect setting for love in the woods, making this As You Like It a play you simply must experience.

As You Like It
Produced by the Ohio Shakespeare Festival at
the Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens, 714 North Portage Path,
Akron, 330-315-3287

The Winter’s Tale, Cleveland Shakespeare Festival

(Front and center, Allen Branstein as Autolycus.)

There’s a saying that “time heals all wounds,” along with its comic corollary “time wounds all heels.” Both would seem to be true in the romantic The Winter's Tale, that combines tragedy and silliness while spanning a couple decades until a happy ending is earned for all.

In some Shakespeare plays, you have to work your way up to climactic moments and profound emotions. But in this somewhat haphazard work, now being shown around town for free by the Cleveland Shakespeare Festival, the heavy stuff is mostly front-loaded. The CleveShakes company handles the significant challenges posed by this play with dexterity, although there are blips in an otherwise smooth production.

Early on, King Leontes gets his Sicilian panties in a bunch because he thinks King Polixenes of Bohemia is boffing Leontes’ wife Hermione. True to the playbook for paranoid and jealous husbands everywhere, Leon won’t listen to reason or even an oracle who gives everyone a pass. So Leontes puts Hermione on trial and she’s sent to jail, pregnant with what Leontes thinks is the other king’s child.

The king and queen of Sicilia are well served by Camillo (Steven Madden), a nobleman who refuses to poison Polixenes when Leontes orders it, and Paulina (a sharp and stalwart Reagan Kendrick), the fierce friend of Hermione through thick and thin.

As Leontes, Aaron Elersich has a nice brooding look and, dressed in contemporary garb, he has the lean and brooding appearance of Jerry Orbach during his Law & Order phase. But Elersich’s line readings, often either forced or flat, aren’t able to bring dimension to the depths of his character’s free-range nihilism. In the smaller role of Polixenes, Eric Perusek is strong and Cassie Neumann makes Hermione a sympathetic figure, right up to her apparent death.

Meanwhile, the child Hermione bore, named Perdita, has been rescued from a Leontes-ordered death by a kindly shepherd (played with masterly aplomb and lovely vocal precision by Larry Seman) and Clown, his son. (Here’s a tip: If you decide to name your son Clown, chances are he will turn out to be a buffoon, but probably not nearly as funny as Nathan Miller’s version.)

Of course, as our old buddy Will is famous for, there are more confusions in store and sure enough, after that aforementioned passage of time, Perdita (Liz Jones) and Polixenes’ son Florizel (Jack Matuszewski) fall in love. This all happens in fantastical Bohemia, where a cutpurse named Autolycus (Allen Branstein in full and frenzied wack-a-doodle mode) keeps the audience laughing.

This is the cue for the magic to take hold, as Leontes reunites with his kid and Hermione turns from a memorial statue back into herself, reuniting with a chastened Leontes. Director Tyson Douglas Rand pumps up the comedy, which works nicely, but the two halves of this oddly constructed play never quite jell.

But it’s still a damn fine way to spend a summer evening.

The Winter’s Tale
Through August 2 at various
outdoor locations, see their
Web site for details: www.cleveshakes.org

Pangs of the Messiah, Mandel Jewish Community Center

(Charles Kartali as Shmuel and Jean Zarzour as Amalia)

You don’t have to be steeped in the politics of the West Bank or the passion of the religious Zionists who call it home in order to understand and appreciate Pangs of the Messiah. But, as they say, it couldn’t hurt.

Placed just slightly in the future, this challenging work by playwright Motti Lerner (an activist in the Israeli peace movement) explores the human toll imposed by political and religious struggles. Although very talky and at times unnecessarily intricate, Lerner crafts many impressive scenes. And a stellar cast under the direction of Scott Plate delivers a powerful evening of theater.

Set in the West Bank home of Rabbi Shmuel Berger, the play pits him and his Orthodox family against his own government, which is on the brink of signing a U.S.-sponsored treaty that will destroy their patch of homeland in trade for peace with a recognized Palestine. If this sounds a bit close to possible reality, you’d be right, and that gives this production added heft.

But what stands out most are the characters Lerner fashions, and how they are brought to life in this production. Shmuel and his wife Amalia welcome home their grown son Avner and his wife Tirtzah from a trip to America. That’s where Avner and Tirtzah failed to sway the administration or the U.N. to help secure the West Bank for Jewish settlers.

Once they’re back home, tensions escalate quickly, and not just on the political front. Avner and Tirtzah have been trying unsuccessfully to have a baby, and that undercurrent roils the waters as Avner becomes progressively more militant—even abandoning his suit and tie for an Uzi.

The Bergers have two other children including Chava (Amy Pawlukiewicz), a pregnant mother who is trying to keep track of her loose-cannon husband Benny (Ryan Jagru), and a younger mentally handicapped son, Nadav, who is constructing a house in the area.

Events ratchet up, expressed in brief newscasts that interrupt the family dynamics from time to time, along with visits from family friend and political player Menachem (Neal Poole). Thus, the stress fractures of the family—and symbolically of Israel itself—are shown in stark relief.

Charles Kartali is strong and compassionate as Shmuel, and he makes his political stand understandable without resorting to invective. In the role of his wife Amalia, Jean Zarzour is equally powerful as his main support and loving companion. Although registering as perhaps a bit old for the part, Mark Mayo handles his duties as Avner with quiet purposefulness. His scenes (both loving and contentious) with his wife, played with sharp intensity by Karen Sabo, are genuine.

One of the best moments, however, involves Shmuel and Nadav as they discuss, in their way, the tensions surrounding the family. Ethan Rosenfeld is captivating as the challenged Nadav, displaying childlike eagerness as well as a shallow grasp of more complicated facts. Even though it’s hard to picture this Nadav building a house and managing an assistant, as the script claims, his simple innocence provides a profound sounding board for the world-shattering events taking place.

Even though the title Pangs of the Messiah has the ring of a religious screed, it is much more about the human price that is paid when zealotry and compromise clash. And that is a lesson we all need to learn.

Note: Sadly, this is the last theatrical production to be sponsored by the JCC. And once again, the theater herd in Cleveland is thinned, to the detriment of everyone. Shiva starts July 2.

Pangs of the Messiah
Through July 1, presented by the Mandel
Jewish Community Center, at the Brooks
Theatre, the Cleveland Play House,
8500 Euclid Avenue, 866-546-1358
http://www.clevejcc.org/PangsOfTheMessiah.asp

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Porthouse Theatre

(NIck Koesters as Pseudolus has his hands full with courtesan Panacea, played by Linda Mementowski.)


Is a “burlesque” show all rubber chickens and pratfalls? Hardly. The dicey trick with fast-paced farces such as A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is that the director and actors have to balance manic wackiness with the discipline of staying on script and on point.

In this production at Porthouse Theatre, directed by musical theater maven Terri Kent, the company hits many fine notes, both musical and comedic. But some of the players don’t stretch quite far enough within their characters and, as a result, the laughter they generate is not as rich and satisfying as it might be.

This 1962 Broadway hit has always been popular, since it features a tender love story immersed in the lusty and lascivious atmosphere of ancient Rome, replete with mistaken identities, mistaken edifices and over-the-top characters. A send-up on the farces of Plautus, this musical features a sneaky-brilliant score by Stephen Sondheim and a hilarious book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart.

Even so, this vaudeville-style work needs a handful of actors who can create individuals we can bond with and believe in. Otherwise, all their crazy antics come across more as mildly amusing calisthenics rather than absurd character-driven inevitabilities.

In brief, the slave Pseudolus is trying to win his freedom by helping his master, young Hero, hook up with a virginal (!) courtesan next door named Philia. Of course, the path to true love has many obstacles, including the fact that she has been purchased, sight unseen, by the gallant warrior Miles Gloriosus (an imposing Brian Keith Johnson). Then, Hero’s father Senex arrives and is mistaken by Philia to be her intended master, much to Senex’s libidinous delight (as he notes, he's eager "to sow my one final oat").

Everything gets even more complicated from there, as a gaggle of prostitutes, cringing slaves and eunuchs, and Senex’s harridan wife Domina (Melissa Owens in a Marge Simpson wig and continual harpy dudgeon) all stir the pot to a boil.

In the lead role of Pseudolus, Nick Koesters employs razor-sharp comic timing and a more-than-passable singing voice, finding many laughs in his portrayal of this sly, conniving servant. But Koesters is so polished and confident on stage, his Pseudolus lacks the vulnerable center that drives this drudge to yearn for freedom—a vulnerability that, incidentally, would motivate the audience root for him.

Sarah Roussos brings a grand set of pipes to her songs as Philia, although she doesn’t have enough fun with her character’s intellectual shortcomings, failing to draw all the humor out of her solo “That’ll Show Him.” Her heartthrob Hero is handled well by Brian Duncan, turning in a lovely rendition of “Love, I Hear.”

As Hysterium, the nervous slave of Senex, J.P Makowski quivers incessantly but doesn’t fully explore the sweeter aspects of the role. In a similar manner, Benjamin Czarnota renders the procurer Marcus Lycus with little more than a low-grade sneer, when a more oily and sleazy attitude would be more amusing.

For guidance in how to handle such roles, look no farther than Marc Moritz, who makes Senex a splendidly dirty old man while still seeming adorable and even cuddly. His crooning of “Everyone Ought to Have a Maid,” along with his two slaves and neighbor Lycus, is a highlight of the show. As are the two eunuchs, played by Danny Lindenberger and Dane Castle, who primp, flirt and steal scenes to which they have no legal claim.

A nod of appreciation also goes to musical director Jonathan Swoboda who chose to keep “Pretty Little Picture,” an incidental song that is often cut but which, in this production, has a charm all its own.

In sum, this Funny Thing is plenty funny, it just falls short of being the total romp it might be.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
Through June 27 at the Porthouse Theatre,
Blossom Music Center, 1145 W. Steels Corners Road,
Cuyahoga Falls, 330-672-3884