Quake, convergence-continuum

(Stuart Hoffman as one of many disappointing men and Erin Scerbak as Lucy)

Considering all the publicity that’s being generated around digital 3D movies, such as Disney-Pixar’s Up, it may be helpful to note that there is substantial entertainment available in the world of 1D, as in one-dimensional characters.

Of course, paper-thin people can be a fatal flaw in serious drama. But when the playwright manages her stick figures adroitly, as Melanie Marnich does in Quake (now at convergence-continuum), the results can be amusing and at times even edifying.

Lucy is a naïve 20-something who is desperately seeking “the big love” (not to be confused with this theater company’s next offering, titled Big Love, which is not to be mistaken for the HBO series of the same name). So she starts traveling around the country, walking up to strange men and hitting on them with a mixture of innocence and foolishly high expectations that is both endearing and slightly obnoxious.

As for the objects of her ardor, they are testosterone fall guys who appear promising at first but soon curdle. One is an outdoorsman who “lets himself go” before Lucy’s eyes, losing his hair and adding a paunch. Another is a pleasant student who is seeing another woman on the side. Even though these dudes are dolts, we are never clued in to what kind of a catch Lucy herself might be. Hey, this is her story, get over it.

As the disappointments accumulate, Lucy starts dreaming about a female serial killer in the news who seems to be everything Lucy wants in herself: brilliant, fierce, and always on the move. That Woman, as the killer is known, spouts geological and astrophysical jibber-jabber as she cuts her own swath through the American male populous.

This all feels like a good-spirited feminist rant, written by a woman who has plenty of poetry coursing through her veins. At one point, feeling lonely, Lucy says “I turned myself into paper, folded myself into a boat, and sailed away.”

In addition to some sparkling language, playwright Marnich simplifies her task by reducing Lucy and the men in her life to nothing more than theatrical Tweets. Whether it’s the jock (single-minded and dumb), the new age guru (artificial and dumb) or the shrink (just dumb), everyone is unrealistically uncomplicated. And that helps the play hammer home its overall message about the frustrating search for connection on our life journeys.

Under the inventive direction of Arthur Grothe, the play is staged with crisp efficiency, although convergence-continuum probably should reevaluate its obsession with including video segments in virtually all their productions. The video bits here are remarkably extraneous and ultimately distracting.

Most of the talented cast handles their simplistic characters with flair. Erin Scerbak is wide-eyed as Lucy, although a number of her line readings come across as unintentionally flat rather than as intentionally banal. Christian Prentice scores in multiple roles, particularly as the crazed jock-cyclist and in an all-too-brief bit as a flight attendant. Stuart Hoffman and Robert Hawkes also deliver sharp cameos in their various guises, with Hoffman’s oft-wounded gas station clerk and Hawkes’ dotty psychiatrist being particularly engaging.

But the play, for all its charm, goes a bit off the track near the end of its 80-minute playing time. When Lucy encounters a physically abusive auto repairman, played by Tom Kondilas, this serious subject is treated with the same cavalier detachment as all the others. And it doesn’t feel like a good fit.

Perhaps the most magnetic performance is turned in by Laurel Johnson as That Woman, strutting with sleek and polished confidence through Lucy’s dream sequences as the role model from hell. In her last scene, That Woman transforms herself in a most unexpected way. Unfortunately, Johnson and director Grothe overplay this moment when a quieter, more subdued approach would have been far more incisive.

Still, there is a glittering collection of interesting scenes here, all infused with witty wordplay. And it offers an excellent summation of the search for true love: “Perfect love is possible. It just depends on how many flaws you can put up with.”

Quake
Through June 27, produced by
convergence-continuum at The Liminis,
2438 Scranton Road, 216-687-0074

Dream Home, Dobama Theatre

(Cathy Albers as Joan)

Back in the 1950s, kids would watch educational films showing how Communism was on the march, as red flowed further and further into neighboring countries. You could use the same graphics, superimpose it on Cleveland, and use it to describe the effects of abandoned homes and foreclosures caused by the current real estate crisis.

Of course, any subject so freighted with emotion makes a fine subject for the stage. And Dobama Theatre is answering the call with Dream/Home, a work they commissioned from playwright Sarah Morton as Part II of their Cleveland Plays series. Structured as a series of monologues, all delivered by local people who are connected to one individual foreclosure event, the piece is surprisingly subtle and deeply felt on an emotional level.

It all starts less than auspiciously as the putative narrator, a banker named Arthur, addresses the audience and once again drags out the tired, beat-to-death “Moses Cleaveland/the “a” was dropped/divided city/yadda yadda” song and dance. Note to any playwrights who, in the future, write about our fair burg and are tempted to rehash Moses: We get it, move on.

Arthur (played with affecting sensitivity by George Roth) appears a few more times, but all the other character appearances are one-shot deals. A nicely greasy Fabio Polanco kicks it off by portraying a mortgage broker who is eager to push through the adjustable rate home loan for Margaret, a schoolteacher.

From there, we meet the next-door neighbor who is tending the yard for the absent homeowner (rendered with perfect specificity by Anne McEvoy) and a realtor who is trying to unload the property (Tom White in a crisply amusing turn).

Whether it’s Margaret’s daughter (Alexis Floyd), who’s trying desperately to hold onto her job as a barista at the local coffee shop, or another neighbor (Rodney Freeman) who must deal with the increase in crime sparked by empty houses on his street, the effects keep multiplying.

Morton skillfully crafts these set pieces, including enough ancillary information about each character so that they don’t seem like linked rants. At one point, Arthur recalls his childhood in the Depression and remembers he was “afraid of wasting even a breath.”

One of the best monologues is delivered by Cathy Albers, who plays Joan, the wife of a retiring bank executive. Looking like a great pick for the cast of The Real Housewives of Gates Mills, Albers is bitchy, touchy, and a bit desperate as she feels her world shifting under her.

Directed with sensitivity by Sonya Robbins, Dream/Home is solid but less than perfect. While various sides of the problem are referenced—the greed of both sleazy lenders and buyers looking for a get-rich-quick windfall—it might help if there was a stronger point of view. This catastrophe is too large, and too destructive, to be simply used as a platform for personal musings, even ones as precise and well-sculpted as these.

The set design by Todd Krispinsky is quite effective, a composition of doors artfully positioned in a heap, even though it mirrors (or is an homage to) a nearly identical set done by Trad A. Burns for Gold Star at Cleveland Public Theatre last year.

By the time we meet Margaret, played with deft resignation and a touch of hope by Lisa Langford, we have a clear picture of the ways in which many lives have been affected. But, once again, accountability is denied. Not because it isn’t called for, but because the misdeeds were so widespread it’s almost impossible to effectively assign blame.

But we should try. Especially in the theater, we should try.

Dream/Home
Through June 7, produced by
Dobama Theatre at the Brooks Theatre,
Cleveland Play House, 216-932-3396

One-Man Star Wars Trilogy, Cleveland Play House

(An uncharacteristically serious-looking Charles Ross, with a lightsaber prop he doesn't use during his performance.)

Hi Bryn,

Boy, do I wish you were with me last night at the Cleveland Play House! As the leading 7-year-old expert on all things Star Wars, at least within our family, you would have been a great help in digging out the small details of this delightful show.

I remember seeing the original flick when it came out, five years after your mom was born, in 1977. And I was blown away by all of it, particularly the idea that if space ships were used daily, they would start to look as battered and dusty as the car in my driveway. (Up to that time, all spaceships looked sparkling and pristine.)

A couple years later I saw the sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, and I thought it was good but I never even saw Return of the Jedi, probably because of some mixed reviews. (Yes, I read reviews because I know how wise and insightful critics are.)

This all proves that I am not the best audience for One-Man, since a real Star Wars fan like you will pick up far more of the film references that rush by in this fast-paced hour-long production.

Standing on a bare stage in a black jumpsuit with no props, Charles Ross performs all the elements of the three movies that make up the trilogy starting with the original epic, Episode IV: A New Hope (see, I didn’t even know that film had a subtitle that was added later, to help keep all the sequels and prequels straight).

And when I say Ross does everything, I’m not kidding. He acts out the scrolling type at the start of each film, the music, the droids, the space battles, the hand-to-hand combat, and most of the characters. His Jabba the Hutt is hilarious, whether you saw the film or not, as is his depiction of the Imperial Walkers.

It’s all done tongue-in-cheek (ask your father), but he never gets nasty and makes fun of the movies or those that love them, such as you my dear. While covering the key plot points, Ross notes some problems in continuity. For instance, there’s one character who pronounces the Princess’s name “Lee-ah,” not “Lay-ah”. If you had been there, you could have reminded me who that was.

One-Man is enjoyable for darn near everyone, just because of Ross’s energetic presence and his finely tuned sense of goofiness. And he talks directly to the audience at times, as himself, giving the whole show a relaxed and friendly feel.

I really think you would have had a blast last night, Bryn, as did several kids I saw in the audience. Maybe we can see it the next time Ross brings his traveling Star Wars show to New Jersey.

Anyhow, live long and prosper. (Oops, sorry, that’s Star Trek.)

I love you,

Grandma Chris

One-Man Star Wars Trilogy
Produced as part of FusionFest
at the Cleveland Play House, through May 10,
8500 Euclid Avenue, 216-795-7000

An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin, PlayhouseSquare

If you have aspirations of being a Broadway—or pretty much any other kind—of singer, your advanced class is now in session at the Palace Theatre in PlayhouseSquare. An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin will teach you more in a couple hours than a year’s worth of conventional instruction. (Of course, if you only aspire to see a great show, the Palace should also be your destination.)

The vast majority of these lessons are positive, especially as they relate to the emotional delivery of songs that tell a story. But there are also a couple instances of excessive, stagey mannerisms that any budding singer might be counseled to avoid.

The show stars two performers who have amassed hefty Broadway portfolios. A winner of enough awards to fill a small cruise ship, LuPone recently finished a smash revival of Gypsy, playing the mother of all stage mothers, Mama Rose. Patinkin won a Tony Award for his performance as Che in Evita, with LuPone in the title role.

As directed by Patinkin on a bare stage with only some scattered work lights, the concert presents a stream of consciousness flow of songs, mostly from Broadway’s composing elite such as Stephen Sondheim, Rogers and Hammerstein, Jerome Kern and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Happily, Patti and Mandy pause a couple times for snatches of scenes from the classic shows South Pacific and Carousel.

Many of the songs are paired thematically so they represent a musical dialogue. In one of these, LuPone comically declares her objection to further commitment in “(I’m Not) Getting Married Today” and Patinkin responds tenderly with “Loving You.”

Among the many glories of this production, the foremost has to be the ability of the two performers to instantly find the emotional heart of each song and then express it in unique, individual ways. Oddly, the high point of the show happens almost immediately, when they play the South Pacific scene along with singing “A Cockeyed Optimist,” “Twin Soliloquies” and “Some Enchanted Evening.” In the span of a mere ten minutes, one feels the full impact of the relationship between Emile de Becque and Nellie Forbush.

There are countless other high points, such as the mash-up of “April in Paris” and “April in Fairbanks,” the latter highlighted by a witty rolling chair ballet choreographed by Ann Reinking. And LuPone delivers a couple audience favorites, such as a stirring rendition of “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” to end Act One and “Everything’s Coming Up Roses.”

While LuPone is consistently enchanting, whether in dramatic or comic mode, Patinkin hits a couple screechingly off-kilter trouble spots. One of these is in his over-the-top performance of “The God-Why-Don’t-You Love-Me Blues” from Follies. Mugging insufferably, he turns this wry and rueful tune into a frenzied bit that is more endured than enjoyed. In addition, Patinkin’s falsetto croon, which he often employs, is an acquired taste. There are time when it works piercingly well and others when it just seems like he’s showing off.

But there are so many transcendent moments in Evening that the rough patches hardly matter. If you sing, or if you just listen, this is a show you shouldn’t miss.

An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin
Through May 17 at the Palace Theatre,
PlayhouseSquare, 1615 Euclid Avenue,
216-241-6000

Heaven’s My Destination, Cleveland Play House

(MIchael Halling as George Brush)

We always tend to cheer for an innocent, out alone in the big, bad world, trying to fend for himself while imbuing others with his uncomplicated moral vision. But those cheers can die off quickly when our hero turns out to have less of Gandhi’s inspired selflessness and more of the self-righteous priggishness of Frank Burns from MASH.

This is the challenge posed by Heaven’s My Destination, a world premiere being presented now at the Cleveland Play House as part of their annual FusionFest celebration. This Lee Blessing adaptation of the Thornton Wilder novel of the same name was commissioned by the Play House, and it’s a mixed bag of amusing moments along with redundancy and some tedium.

To Blessing and director Michael Bloom’s credit, Destination conjures up a charming tone that keeps one smiling through the bulk of the play. But those smiles rarely burst into knowing hilarity or elide into rueful insight, since the main character of George Brush is written in stone, aside from a book-ended crisis of faith.

Set in 1931, George is a successful traveling school text salesman who has strict Christian thoughts on what is right and wrong, and he doesn’t hesitate in sharing his rules with strangers at the slightest provocation. Like a fundamentalist missionary hacking his way through a jungle of heathens, he attempts to “correct” every person he meets.

Depending on your perspective, you might consider such a person a devout and unshakable purveyor of goodness or a searing pain in the rectum. In either case, to work theatrically the character of George must be sufficiently accessible, and that is where this production finds itself at a bit of a loss.

Perhaps it’s because of our awareness of the damage religious zealots with firmly closed minds can do—from Osama bin Laden to James Dobson—that the premise of a free-range moralist is less than cuddly. Brush’s views range from the unassailable (against Jim Crow laws) to the quaint (he won’t accept interest on his bank account) to the ignorant (vehemently against the theory of evolution). And add to that he’s essentially a humorless prude.

This is a vexing fellow to build a play around, but Blessing manages to make Brush a feckless innocent who seems always on the brink of making a breakthrough of some sort. Trouble is, he never does, and there are so many brief scenes with so many different characters—a common problem when trying to condense a novel into a play—that one eventually tires from the oft-repetitive 2½-hour effort.

In the lead, Michael Halling does yeoman work since he’s in virtually every scene and has to contend with a role that has little if any conventional human dimension. It’s hard to play a symbol, especially a simplistic one, and Halling emerges relatively unscathed from the process. A cast of seven other actors portray the galaxy of people who meet George on his travels, some of whom beat him, berate him, or otherwise do anything they can to get out of his way.

A small romance with a woman named Roberta flares up momentarily, but like all of Brush’s other interactions it doesn’t conclude too happily (he condemns her for her smoking, among other things). And finally, confronting profound doubts about his faith, George experiences an epiphany in time for the final curtain.

The Play House production does a nice job of creating a period tone, sort of like O Brother, Where Art Thou complete with some musical interludes (Halling has a kick-ass tenor voice). But the play itself would benefit from a more targeted focus on fewer characters, so that we could get closer to the kind of monomaniacal innocence, and perhaps the vulnerability, that George Brush represents.

Heaven’s My Destination
Through May 17 at the Cleveland Play House,
8500 Euclid Avenue, 216-795-7000

Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill, Karamu

(Rebecca Morris as Billie)

All of us can recognize a good voice when we hear it, even when it comes out of an unexpected package such as Susan Boyle. But when a singer has a flawed voice with enormous emotional power, it’s more of a mixed bag.

Billie Holiday had a reedy voice with limited range, but her best songs register incredibly high on the emotional Richter scale. “Lady Day,” as she was dubbed by lifelong friend and legendary saxophonist Lester Young, had a singing style that was the equivalent of a person carefully picking through the wreckage of a hurricane to find small, undamaged treasures. Breathy and partially broken, Holiday’s vocals unerringly found the heart of some of the American songbook’s greatest tunes.

In Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill, now at Karamu, playwright Lanie Robertson gives us a glimpse of Holiday in performance, four months before her death. While the lead actor delivers a less-than-perfect vocal impression, there is so much truth in her performance that evening still works remarkably well.

Accompanied only by Jimmy Powers (Ed Ridley) on piano and an unnamed bass player (Glenn Holmes), Billie sings her songs and drifts off into stories about her past. Swigging a cocktail, she is still battling the storms that have beset her life. From being raped as a child to battling heroin addiction, brutish lovers and a stint in prison for drug possession, life was no Holiday for the girl born Eleanora Fagan.

To the playwright’s credit, he doesn’t make Billie a saint. She pouts and mumbles, complains about racism (with monumental justification, by the way), and goes on mini-rants that are only interrupted when Jimmy plays a few chords to bring her back into present time.

One emotional high (or low) point is hit when Billie sings “Strange Fruit,” the haunting song about the lynching of black men. Another, more comical peak is reached when Billie describes a band tour in the south where a restaurant only permitted her to eat in the kitchen with the help, but the snarky white female maitre d’ wouldn’t allow her bathroom privileges. Her fluid response to that bitch makes Billie #1 in my book.

Bearing a strong physical resemblance to Ms. Holliday, Rebecca Morris, doesn’t fully capture the Lady’s delicately gone-to-seed vocal quality. Fut she plumbs many of the emotional depths that make Billie Holiday relevant today and far into the future. (Try this for a sublime taste of the real thing, taped two years before Billie’s death.)

Morris’ storytelling also becomes a bit patterned and predictable in terms of pacing, which some minor shaping could fix. But she and director Caroline Jackson Smith wisely never rush things. This is Billie’s moment, and she’s earned the right to take as damn much time as she wants to tell her story.

Ridley and Holmes provide solid instrumentals on John Konopka’s cabaret-style set. But the spotlight is on Morris, and she delivers great renditions of “God Bless the Child” and “Crazy He Calls Me,” on the way to providing a peek into the life of one of the jazz world’s beacons.

Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill
Through May 24 at Karamu House,
2355 E. 89th Street, 216-795-7077

Wrecks, Bang and Clatter/Akron

(The issues in Wrecks revolves around one of these. One that's occupied, that is.)

An unassailable truth of writing is that it’s easy to pen a play with a bad surprise ending. Easy, that is, if you don’t care about little matters such as consistency or credibility.

The surprise ending in Wrecks by Neil LaBute, now at the Bang and Clatter Theatre in Akron, is certainly a shocker. But some may be more put off by the long, slow build-up than by the specific creepiness of the secret that’s eventually revealed.

Edward Carr, a 60-year-pld man dying of lung cancer, is at a funeral home grieving the death of his wife, who was 15 years his senior. For some 75 minutes Ed relates his life with Mary Josephine, or Jo-Jo as he called her. Describing her as perfect, “a pearl dropped down to Earth from Christ,” Ed waxes philosophic, breaks down in tears and chain smokes as he brings us into his intimate 30-year marriage.

There are a few funny moments, as when Ed describes the business he and Jo-Jo ran, a classic automobile rental chain called, inevitably, Carr’s. But most of the memories shared in this one-man show are fairly mundane, and eventually quite repetitive (we get it, Ed loved Jo-Jo, really).

Directed at a leisurely pace by Sean McConaha, this repetition of adoration begins to grate. That slowness, and Viront’s inability to be bland on stage, eventually work against this material.

Ideally, Edward should be an everyman, a charming guy who’s everybody’s best friend. (There must be a reason, other than the easy pun cited above, why LaBute made Ed a car salesman.) But Viront’s Edward is most definitely an unusual character, seeming to seethe with undefined inner demons, so the ordinary reminiscences put in his mouth seem oddly out of place.

Those demons are perhaps understandable in retrospect, after all is known, but the surprise ending (hint: there’s wordplay involved in the title) isn’t as much of a shock as it might have been, if we had been lured into perceiving Ed as being a totally normal dude.

Even so, Viront has total control of the stage, sucks down a half-dozen Camels with dispatch (for all you fans of second-hand smoke), and crafts a character that seems true—if less than a perfect fit for this play.

Wrecks
Through May 9 at the Bang and Clatter Theatre,
51 East Market Street, Akron,
330-606-5317