Carousel, Baldwin Wallace University

Many people have a love-hate relationship with Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel. While multitudes adore the rich music and enduring tale that those two geniuses produced, others are repelled by the sexism and casual acceptance of abuse that pokes through. Not to mention a plot that lurches uncomfortably at times.

Whatever camp you’re in, this dazzling production will likely make you a lover. Directed with passion and precision by Scott Plate, the ever-spinning circles—life and death, romance and rejection, misdeeds and redemption—whirl into a most memorable event.

Adapted by R&H from a play set in Budapest, this iconic musical takes place on the Maine seacoast in 1904. Scenic designer Jeff Herrmann’s in-the-round set features a central, circular wooden deck bleached by sun and salt water, where the locals cavort. The set functions splendidly on several levels. It offers the performers ample room to dance, since Gregory Daniels’ muscular and often sensuous choreography requires some serious elbowroom.

But viewed symbolically, the circle with two attached runways neatly overlays the two gender symbols for man ♂ and woman ♀, joining them at the shared circle. This allows the women to head off one way, flouncing through their kitchen door, and the men to romp the opposite way, up onto the rigging of a ship’s mast. Freud could have had a field day with this set.

And it comes to life, gloriously, in the opening “Carousel Walttz,” an overture complete with clever mini-vignettes and a human carousel that earns it’s own applause even before the prologue is complete.

Since this is a BWU production, four major roles are double cast to provide more opportunities for their preternaturally talented students. On this night, Kyle-Jean Baptiste and Caroline Murrah played the star-crossed lovers Billy Bigelow and Julie Jordan.

Baptiste creates a brash and brawling Billy, and his tender/tough rendition of the surpassingly intricate “Soliloquy” is enough to bring you to your feet. Murrah handles the subtler role of Julie with a deft touch, enabling us to relate to her character’s sweet passivity as an artifact of the time (or at least, we wish it were so).

As for the other two double-cast performers, Mary Mondlock infuses Carrie Pipperidge with sprightly energy and Anthony Sagaria evolves her main squeeze Enoch Snow from a taciturn stud to a rigid pain in the ass.

Among the permanent cast members, Brandyn Day is alternately amusing and scary as Billy’s snarky buddy Jigger Craigin. And Lissy Gulick is just adorable as Nettie Fowler, crooning “You’ll Never Walk Alone” so melodically, Jerry Lewis must be somewhere weeping. As Mrs. Mullin, the vindictive owner of the carousel, Sara Zoe Budnik is fine although she could add a bit more edge and orneriness.

The voices of all the performers range from very good to exceptional, as one has come to expect from the B-W Department of Theatre and Dance and the Conservatory of Music. They are accompanied in this production by just two grand pianos, played with admirable nuance by music director Andrew Leslie Cooper and music supervisor Nancy Maier.

Even if some of the plot points are curious (When exactly did Billy and Julie get married? A posthumous good deed absolves all the crap you did when you were alive? Really?), this production sweeps you away with its spirit.

Indeed, it’s a play with so many perfect moments along with a handful of off-notes that it’s impossible to get all of it right all the time. But this production comes damn close.

Word has it that the short run is completely sold out. However, if someone offers you a couple tickets they bought and you’re getting married that night, postpone the wedding. You can get hooked any day, but you’re not likely to see a performance of Carousel as wonderful as this anytime soon.

Carousel

Through November 24, produced by the Baldwin Wallace University Department of Theatre and Dance & the Conservatory of Music, Kleist Center for Art and Drama, bw.edu/theatre

Hansel und Gretel, Oberlin Opera Theater and Cabaret, The Academy for the Performing Arts

(Karen Jesse as the witch in Hansel ind Gretel.)

Sometimes, when the schedule allows, it’s good to take a break and see what’s happening regarding live performances at the high school and college level. And based on what I’ve seen this weekend at opposite ends of the Cleve-burg region, it’s clear that the kids are all right.

And if you hurry, you can catch one of them since their final performances are this afternoon.

Hansel und Gretel, Oberlin Opera Theater

For a story about kidnapping, murder and the cannibalism of little kiddies, this sure is a pretty opera. The bounteous musical material by composer Engelbert Humperdinck is immensely pleasing, performed with precision and verve by the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra and sung by a raft of talented students (some about to graduate college and a couple not yet out of grade school).

It is performed in German, with the English translation helpfully displayed on a screen above the stage.

The first act, comprising two scenes, shows H&G battling with each other at home, yearning for food as their mother and father scrap for sustenance. Once out in the woods, the kids fall asleep and wake up amidst angels.

At this performance (and in today’s), Nicole Levesque as Hansel and Emily Hopkins as Gretel sing with clarity and power, even as they poke and torment each other.

But when they met up with Hexe, the witch in Act Two who lives in a cake and candy house, the kids’ dreams of the world’s biggest sugar buzz are trampled. As Hexe, guest artist and 2004 Oberlin grad Karen Jesse sings with ferocious sweetness in her multi-colored outfit. And she’s very creepy, kind of like John Wayne Gacy in drag.

As directed by Jonathon Field and conducted by Raphael Jimenez, this Hansel und Gretel is thoroughly delightful, and sometimes quite witty. Right up to the moment when Hexe gets baked in her own oven and the children are rescued.

Cabaret, The Academy for the Performing Arts

As the TV show Glee proves, it’s al lot easier to go through high school when you’re in your twenties (and for some cast members, almost in their thirties). But when you’re 17 years old, or younger, there are a lot more issues.

That said, the talented high school cast of Cabaret does some amazing things under the direction of Tom Fulton, director of the Academy. Drawing from several schools, the Academy offers a two-year college prep program for juniors and seniors, preparing them for success in the performing arts—in college and beyond.

In this significantly de-sexualized production (a nod to the tender age of the performers, and to avoid heart attacks among the parents), fine performances are turned in by Dan Hoy (who doubles as choreographer) as the Emcee and Emily Wirthwein as Sally Bowles. Hoy’s dance with the gorilla in “If You Could See Her” is spot-on, including the original and chilling lyric at the end.

Jon Loya sings with deep resonance as Cliff Bradshaw, and R. Brendan Hall brings a surprising level of humor and understanding to his role of the aged Herr Schultz.

Even though the dialog in some scenes proceeds at a fairly glacial pace, these young actors maintain their discipline and manage to conquer this complex musical.

Ah, to be 17 again and learning theater from someone as talented and perceptive as Tom Fulton.

Hansel und Gretel

Through today, Nov. 10, at Hall Auditorium, Oberlin

College campus, 67 N. Main St., Oberlin, 440-775-8169

Cabaret

Through today, Nov. 10, at the Chagrin Falls High School campus, 400 E. Washington St., Chagrin Falls, 440-715-4004

Cut Flowers, Karamu House

(From left: Prophet Seay as Ronnie, Dyrell Barnett as Kevin and Greg White as Paul)

We all know, thanks to the movies, that African-American men like to talk smack in the barbershop. But who knew such verbal jousting was happening in the back room of florist shops?

It’s stems that are being cut, and not hair, in Cut Flowers by Gavin Lawrence, now at Karamu House. This well-intentioned and frequently well-written script also features a bounty of missteps and wrong directions. And it is unfortunate that director Terrence Spivey chooses to amp up the melodrama whenever he can.

Still, there is an undeniable spirit to these proceedings that rescue it from disaster. And a few performances shine brightly, making the production a mixed bag of treats and disappointments.

Six black men are working in the cut flowers department of a florist shop owned by a white family. As they snip and organize their blooms, we learn about the back stories of each worker, from Kyle, the tight-ass supervisor down to Paul (Greg White), a quiet alcoholic who keeps sneaking sips from his pint bottle.

As Kyle, the talented Kenny Parker plays the single note of anger and frustration far too often, turning the first act into a repetitive grind. This is lightened to a large degree by some of the other actors, who engage in all sorts of verbal byplay and sexual teasing (about cunnilingus, primarily).

Chief among them is Prophet Seay as the loose and constantly joking Ronnie. He is a delight to behold on stage, even when Ronnie suffers a personal tragedy later on. Also strong is Anthony Brown as the beleaguered Mark, a man who is being physically abused by his wife but won’t hit back for reasons that are slowly revealed.

And Michael May turns in a glowering turn as Brian, the hardest worker in the shop who has a bundle of his own problems. The sixth man is Kevin (Dyrell Barnett), a militant young college educated man who keeps challenging his co-workers to think and feel.

An unseen receptionist Rhonda (Tonya Broach) interacts with the men over the intercom—a theatrical device that is rarely used, and for good reason.

The second act works better, thanks to a clearer set of conflicts punctuated by a drawn pistol. But the playwright’s tendency to lecture, especially through the voice of Kyle, takes the edge off of his more successful characterizations. Lawrence tries to work the central metaphor—you have to cut flowers to help them live longer—but the cutting of these people never seems equally beneficial.

Spivey helps his cast develop some strong characters, and with a stronger script and less melodramatic overstatement (be quiet Kyle), the downbeat ending would work like a charm.

Cut Flowers

Through November 17 at Karamu House, 2355 E. 89^th St., 216-795-7077.

Black Cat Lost, Theater Ninjas

(From left: Ray Caspio, Lauren Joy Fraley and Sarah Moore)

We’ve all experienced that weird feeling when our car zips over a small rise in the road and our stomach floats and then starts to fall. It’s kinda fun, if it lasts for a second or two.

But when we experience the death of someone close, that feeling of gut-fall and disconnectedness lasts for hours, days, months. Years. And that’s not much fun at all.

In the interesting and always challenging play Black Cat Lost by Erin Courtney, now being produced by the Theater Ninjas, that feeling is expressed in a multitude of overlapping and intersecting moments.

Structured around Zen death poems (written by audience members as they enter, or provided by the cast), the extremely non-linear play both obsesses and frolics around all the ways we try to engage, and mostly avoid, such monumental loss.

What’s a Zen death poem? Well, it’s usually short, three lines, but not a haiku. Such as: “Forever…/I pass as all things do/Dew on the grass.” It tries to engage the mind just before death which, you know, could be any time for any one of us.

Sure, you can make fun of this stuff. If you just read the last five words of the above poem, it’s a Third Grade thigh slapper: “…do/Dew on the grass.”

But there are telling thoughts in Courtney’s piece. In one vignette, a woman relates how she visited her young son’s elementary school class and observed him, through a window. struggling with his nap-time blanket. She notes, “Is this how death feels? To see the complexities and not be able to act?”

You may find moments that resonate with you; there are plenty of them.

This play is paired with The Refrain, a brief work devised by Jeremy Paul, the director of both plays. It also deals with loss in a similar overlapping, sensory manner.

The performers—Tania Benites, Ray Caspio, Lauren Joy Fraley and Sarah Moore—deliver crisp, sometimes amusing and often intriguing turns that include some singing and dancing (or at least movement).

The take-away from this hour-long production is a window into how we all experience life and loss. Remembering little, understanding less, but still willing to fight the good fight.

Note: This production is being staged at three different venues, so if you plan to go be sure you have the right place and the right day. For details, go to theaterninjas.com

Black Cat Lost

Through Nov. 9 produced by Theater Ninjas at various locations. Details at: www.theaterninjas.com

The Bald Soprano, Ohio City Theatre Project

(From left: Courtney Nicole Auman, Stuart Hoffman, Christine McBurney, Robert Hawkes)

A sensible person might ask why a critic would review a play after its performance schedule has been completed. Such is the case with The Bald Soprano, which closed its brief two-week run last night.  After all, what’s the point of a review when no one can respond to a favorable notice by buying tickets?

The answer, of course, is that local theaters, especially new ones such as OCTP, need more than ticket sales. They need financial support. And since we appear to be between government shutdowns for the time being, this would be a fine time to consider a donation to OCTP.

The Bald Soprano by Eugene Ionesco is a marvelous example of the theater of the absurd, as two couples, a maid and a fire chief (!) trade non sequiturs (no, make that anti-sequiturs) as they inch their way through another deplorably banal day.

The often hilarious production, directed by Sarah Greywitt, was performed with exquisite timing, down to the smallest tongue-clicks and head turns. Robert Hawkes and Christine McBurney were especially delicious as Mr. and Mrs. Smith, a married pair who alternately vex and delight each other for no apparent reason. And for every reason in the world.

They are visited by dinner guests the Martins, played with wide-eyed innocence and a complete lack of short (or long) term memory by Stuart Hoffman and Courtney Nicole Auman. Cassie Neumann as Mary the maid and Benjamin Gregg as the Fire Chief, also contributed sharp miniature characterizations.

As performed, it was a nonsensical parody of the way we converse, set against a rather grisly landscape of pointless human existence. In other words, it was rather sublime.

This is a theater group that clearly deserve support. With luck, they might even decide to explore more of the absurdist genre. In any case, put them on your play-dar (radar for theater buffs), maybe send a check, and keep an eye out for their next production.

Ohio City Theatre Project

Connect with OCTP at www.ohiocitytheatreproject.com

All This Intimacy, Ensemble Theatre

(From left: Katie Simon Atkinson, Laura Rauh, Jeremy Jenkins, Natalie Green, Ryan Edlinger, Kay Rommel)

If you Google the word “smirk,” you will find definitions revolving around the idea of offensive smugness. And that’s a pretty good capsule description of All This Intimacy by Rajiv Joseph. It’s now at Ensemble Theatre as part of their Second Season of shows in their smaller studio theater.

Joseph, the gifted playwright from Cleveland Heights who penned the marvelous Huck & Holden and the much-acclaimed Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo (and whose Animals Out Of Paper is still playing Ensemble's main stage), here pounds out a symphony of wrong notes.

While director Aaron Elersich crafts a few scenes that work quite well, and the ending is thankfully downbeat, the two hours getting to that point are a hard slog.

Ty is a young-ish poetry phenom who had a collection of his verse hit the best-seller list. It was about a man who had a super power enabling him to turn anything into a complicated maze.

So now Ty is a poetry professor on the make and, as we learn in the first scene, has impregnated three women: his next-door neighbor, married adoptive mom Maureen; his poetry student Becca; and his girlfriend Jen. He's created a labyrinth with no way out, just like his poetry protagonist, get it?

This is all meant to set up a climactic second act where, just like a contrived episode of I Love Lucy, all the women are nonsensically invited by Ty to a dinner where he will announce his fatherhood to all assembled. Hoo-boy, Ty, you got some ‘splainin’ to do! Of course, this is all splained by the playwright in excruciating detail early on, so there are no surprises.

Having quickly dispensed with any sort of mystery or sense of discovery, Joseph then proceeds to force-feed the audience simplistic truths about making bad choices and self-centeredness. Ty’s supposedly introspective moments (“Where did I go wrong?”) are overwhelmed by a testosterone-fueled smirk that runs through the whole script.

This isn’t helped by Ryan Edlinger, who plays Ty with an almost continual toothy smile that is his default facial expression for every emotion. This makes it almost impossible to get a true reading on Ty’s inner emotional journey (if there is one) and eventually just becomes grating and tiresome. But he does provide one breakthrough: Who knew you could smirk while grinning?

The talented actor Jeremy Jenkins doesn’t fare much better as Ty’s best pal Seth, starting off in mid-hysteria and then mugging for most of the show. Thankfully, as his sharp-tongued fiancee Franny, Katie Simon Atkinson puts together a wickedly funny character.

And the other three women mostly hold up their end of this bad bargain. Kay Rommel exudes Freshman spunk as Becca, Laura Rauh is a believable Maureen, and Natalie Green survives as Jen in an underwritten part that should be more interesting than it is.

But lets face it, Joseph isn’t as interested in the women as he is in celebrating the spooge-fest that smug Ty is orchestrating. And even though his comeuppance eventually comes up, it’s a long and obvious trip getting there.

All This Intimacy

Through October 27 ay Ensemble Theatre, 2843 Washington Blvd., Cleveland Heights, 216-321-2930

Texas Chainsaw Musical, Blank Canvas Theatre

If you like blood and body counts in your play-going experience, but aren’t that into Shakespeare, then consider a trip to a gory patch of Texas back country in Texas Chainsaw Musical. Blank Canvas Theatre is revisiting this gore-fest, which was their fledgling company’s first show a year or so ago.

And thanks to director Patrick Ciamacco and his rowdy band of Blank Canvas players, every homicide is a splatter-drenched comical treat. It all centers on Eddy (otherwise known as “Leatherface”), a tuneful sociopath who gleefully kills any living thing within reach.

Based on the movie of almost the same name, the book by Christopher T. Minori features a fairly lame subplot about a “pantywaist” named Steven, and the music and lyrics by Cory Bytof are nothing very special.

But the gore and laughs spill out practically non-stop as Eddy and his eventual partner in crime Lucretia (Kate Leigh Michalski) off everyone from Eddy’s mom to a pregnant census taker to the UPS guy.

The blood-soaked cast includes Neely Gevaart as innocent Kristy, an object of Eddy’s blood lust, and Leslie Andrews as a nun who rocks the joint in “The Gospel According to Steven.” Kim Escut also stands out as a couple different mothers with serious family issues.

In the role of Eddy, Perren Hedderson is a quivering, twitching mass of psychopathologies—lighting his pet cat on fire before he moves on to his bipedal prey—and he’s hilarious.

Weirdly, in a production with so many gory special effects (anyone in the first two rows gets sprayed with blood, guaranteed), the quiet moments are some of the funniest. And the supporting cast, many of whom play multiple roles, wade into the carnage with cheerful abandon.

Best advice: Grab some of those fun-size candy bars from your plastic Halloween pumpkin bowl and have a blast with this irreverent, song-infused bloodbath.

Texas Chainsaw Musical

Through November 2 at Blank Canvas Theatre, 78^th Street Studio, W. 78^th Street, 440-941-0458