Sweat, Cleveland Play House

Anger and fear are powerful forces, and those hounds of hate have been released with ferociously effective results in our recent elections. In 2016, it gave us the morally squalid presidency of Donald J. Trump. And it threatens to do so again in a few days if everyone (meaning EVERYONE) doesn’t vote.

The seeds of that anger are explored in Sweatby Lynn Nottage, the Pulitzer Prize winning play now at the Cleveland Play House. Set in both 2000 and 2008, we see how blue-collar workers in Reading, Pennsylvania are trying to manage their frustrations about job loss, insecurity and diminished hope. 

The play begins in 2008 when two young men, Jason and Chris, are being interrogated by their parole officer (Robert Barry Fleming) in the wake of a crime they committed which is not mentioned. Then we flash back to the year 2000, when NAFTA was the hotly debated topic since many feared it would send jobs out of the country.

These discussions are held in and around a bar run by Stan, a middle-aged guy who suffered a leg injury on the job at the local steel tubing factory and now walks with a pronounced limp. His customers and hangers-on include a trio of three female workers at the plant—Cynthia, Tracey and Jessie. Cynthia is black and Tracey and Jessie are white, and like good union members they bond together after their shift, helping each other navigate their jobs, family lives and excessive drinking habits.

Tracey’s son Jason also works at the plant, and he shows up occasionally at the bar with his black pal Chris, who is Cynthia’s son. To complicate matters further, Cynthia’s estranged husband Brucie (Jimmie Woody) is hanging around trying to reconnect with her. Also, the bar’s janitor and go-fer Oscar (Xavier Cano) is longing to work at the plant and responds to a factory flyer seeking Hispanic workers to apply for non-union (ie. lower paying) jobs.

Then things get dicey when Cynthia is promoted to management and the plant forces a lockout on the workers. Old tensions boil up and fault lines appear, ending in an Act Two physical confrontation that has tragic consequences.

There are a lot of characters to wrangle in this play, and Nottage is only sporadically successful at making them all seem believable. Indeed, the long explanatory speeches that most of them give to fill in their back stories sound more like factoid sociological profiles that human speech as the playwright ticks off the requisite character boxes: The Loyal Worker Who Was Damaged, The Locked Out Worker with a Grudge, The Dead-End Worker Who Just Wants a Paycheck, The Drunk Worker Who Passes Out on a Daily Basis, etc.

Under the direction of Laura Kepley, the CPH actors invest the material with as much humanity as possible. Nancy Lemenager makes Tracey a fierce foe of whomever she targets, while Nehassaiu deGannes slaloms deftly through Cynthia’s two job descriptions and her familial issues. As the third leg of this trio, Chris Seibert portrays constantly drunk Jessie with deft control to avoid having her become a cliché.

The guy-pal duo of Jason (Jack Berenholtz) and Chris (Brooks Brantly) doesn’t work quite as well due to the fact that their characters, particularly in the 2000 scenes, are underwritten. As Stan, Robert Ellis is a strong and steadying influence on his patrons.

The working class in this country has gotten the short and nasty end of the economic stick for a long time, and this play deserves credit for trying to adjust that balance. Unfortunately, it’s hard to ignore how the righteous and justifiable anger of blue-collar workers has been twisted by many of our current politicians into racial hate, intolerance of others and unquestioning belief in big lies repeated ad nauseam. Maybe we can see that in another play down the road, if we’re not all in jail by then for being…different. 

So, you know: Vote!

Sweat

Through November 4 at the Cleveland Play House, Playhouse Square, 1407 Euclid Ave., 216-241-6000, clevelandplayhouse.com.

Pride and Prejudice, Great Lakes Theatre

(Andrew May and Carole Healey as Mr. and Mrs. Bennet)

Jane Austen has always been a favorite read, even for people who are into horror (check out “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,” a takeoff on the romantic original with ultraviolent zombie mayhem).

On the other hand, you may not need any ornamentation of the original to enjoy Austen’s take on five sisters who are out to land rich guys. If so, you should be suffused with delight at Pride and Prejudice, now at Great Lakes Theater. It is a theatrical adaptation by Joseph Hanreddy and J.R. Sullivan and directed by Hanreddy, who has directed five other shows at GLT.

Even though it comes in at nearly three hours, this is an elegantly streamlined version of P&P, with the narration from the novel absorbed into dialogue for the stage. Indeed, the scenery and the scene changes are minimal which throws all the focus on the actors. And that is particularly good news here.

Portraying the parents of the grown and almost-grown daughters of the Bennet family are Andrew May and Carole Healey. May does more with a shrug than most actors achieve with a soliloquy, and his wincing asides to his daughters and others are honed with precision. Equally amusing is Healey, who is candid about her desire to “dispose of” her daughters in marriages to wealthy gents, regardless of their other qualities.

And, as you know, pair off they do. The lovely Jane (an elegant Jillian Kates) eventually hooks up with Mr. Bingley (Daniel Millhouse, who seems as eager and curious as a slightly nervous meerkat), while sardonic Elizabeth (Laura Welsh Berg) is pursued, after a fashion, but the stiffly unapproachable Mr. Darcy (Nick Steen).

Rounding out the quintet of sisters are Courtney Hausman as too-smart-for-the-room Mary, Kailey Boyle as flighty Lydia, and Amy Keum as young and impulsive Kitty.

The groveling Mr. Collins, he of the desperately insincere exclamations, is also after Liz after he learns Jane is off the market, but Liz is having none of it. As Collins, Eric Damon Smith has creepy good fun with this cloying character.

The large cast handles the material with exceptional panache, with only a small wrinkle or two. In two smaller roles, the usually spot-on Katherine DeBoer engages in more mugging than is required. (But oddly, Melissa Graves goes over-the-top as the housekeeper at Pemberley, Mrs. Reynolds and it seems entirely fitting and quite amusing). And Alex Syiek is wasted in the microscopic role of Fitzwilliam.

In any case, this Pride and Prejudice is a welcome relief from the barrage of coarse language (“horse-face!”) that currently permeates our culture. In the supremely capable hands of Hanreddy, this Austen caper is refined, witty, and altogether transporting.

Pride and Prejudice

Through November 4 at Great Lakes Theater, Hanna Theatre, 2067 E. 14 St., 216-241-6000, greatlakestheater.org.

Ya Mama!, Cleveland Public Theatre

Okay, just so there’s no confusion about the currently running theatrical Mammas (with exclamation points!): Mamma Mia! is the musical now at the Great Lakes Theater while Ya Mama! is the one-person show that just opened at Cleveland Public Theatre. They’re both about mammas, however you spell them, but that’s about where the similarities end.

Well, there actually is one shared aspect since both of these shows have been seen in Cleveland before. The ABBA jukebox musical has been popping up on various tours for a good long time while Ya Mama!, written and performed by Nina Domingue, had a previous CPT production in 2012.

The return of Domingue is always a welcome sight since she ignites the stage with her spot-on characterizations and stage movement that is gloriously expressive. Once again, she is telling her own story of growing up in the fires of her own personal hell: her mother committed suicide by drinking drain cleaner when Nina was just four years old. Eventually, her father married a woman named Betty who turned out to be psychologically and physically abusive to the growing Nina.

Using quicksilver persona shifts, Domingue seamlessly fashions scenes involving three or more characters, and it’s a tribute to her talent that we never get those characters confused. These are the moments that work best and resonate most effectively. When Betty snaps at Nina, ordering her to rewash the laundry if there’s speck of lint on anything, your heart sinks along with the young girl’s.

As Nina grows into adulthood she begins having her own kids, hacking her way through the jungle of motherhood issues (What do you do when a child is sick?) without having the guiding light that she was denied from her own mothering wasteland. Her challenges from the five-day labor she experienced with her first child are both agonizing and hilarious.

In this stage iteration, Domingue is joined by Bill Ransom, sitting high above and behind the performer, contributing deft touches of percussion—a rattle of wood blocks here and a sprightly bongo riff there. His efforts add a lovely texture to the proceedings that amplify the emotions at key times.

Under the sensitive direction of Nathan Henry. Domingue tells about her life in 75 minutes of riveting storytelling. She does her remarkable work in a scenic design by Inda Blatch-Geib that is sometimes startlingly powerful (getting trapped in a large bookcase with collapsed shelves) and at other times just startling for no particular reason (a door with a broken shard of another door sticking out from it).

As was the case six years ago, Domingue’s writing can tend towards the didactic when she wants to clearly make a point about her life. This is completely understandable on an emotional level, but theatrically it pulls the audience out of the moment, particularly at the end when the character Nina takes an emotional victory lap.

One wishes Domingue the playwright would fully trust her word artistry by just telling the story, avoid summarizing, and allowing the audience to draw its own conclusions. But if you long to see an actor in full control of her impressive capabilities, ya gotta see Ya Mama!

Ya Mama!

Through October 27 at Cleveland Public Theatre, 6415 Detroit Ave., 216-631-2727, cptonline.org.

Cannibal, the Musical, Blank Canvas Theatre

It’s an old joke. You say, “What is the essence of comedy?” And just as the person starts to respond, probably with “I don’t know,” you interrupt and say “Timing!” It’s funny because it’s true.

And if you asked me what’s wrong with Cannibal, the Musical, now at Blank Canvas Theatre, I’d quickly reply, timing! Because there is little to none of it in this piece featuring book, music and lyrics by (a much younger)Trey Parker. Yes, he’s the co-creator of South Park and The Book of Mormon, but Cannibal was his first show, and it shows.

It features all of Parker’s trademark gifts for politically incorrect japes and gross-outs. Indeed, there are splatter-zone seats ringing the stage where patrons are positioned to be doused with various theatrical replicas of bodily fluids expelled from various character orifices.

What the show doesn’t have are well-crafted comic characters (even gross ones) or a small twinge of wit. And the timing! Long pauses surround most lines as the actors appear to grope for what to say next. This is hard to understand, since director Patrick Ciamacco has proven himself to be excellent at his craft. Evidently he spent too much time making sure the fart nozzles and eyeball squirters were working perfectly.

The story? It’s based on the true account of Alferd (yes, that’s how it’s spelled) Packer who was officially charged with cannibalism for dining on some members of his expeditionary party when they were snowed in somewhere on the way to Colorado during the winter of 1874.

That’s a lot to chew on, but in this 90-minute show the fun cannibalism stuff doesn’t happen until about the 75-minute mark. That leaves a lot of time to fill and this cast isn’t up to the challenge—unless you laugh loudly and reflexively whenever anyone says a dirty word or does something disgusting. In that case it would be easier to just attend any seven-year-old boy’s birthday party.

I have nothing against gross and offensive humor, as long as it is performed with skill and a soupcon of intelligence. None of that is present in this show, except for a clever rendition of “Let’s Build a Snowman” performed wonderfully by David Turner and a reasonably joyous ensemble singing of “Hang the Bastard” after Packer is arrested for his dietary choices.

As Packer, Noah Hrbek sings adequately but is oddly and inappropriately inoffensive. And Meg Martinez as Polly, a local reporter who tries to get the story, also sings well but does not have the acting chops to handle some supposedly amusing moments.

Trey Parker is a gift to the world for his later works cited above which are clever, subversive, and hilariously brilliant. As for Cannibal, it’s only for the hard-core fans of juvenilia (insert wet fart sound here). Timing!

Cannibal, the Musical

Through October 28 at Blank Canvas Theatre, West 78 Street Studios, 1300 W. 78 St., 440-941-0458, blankcanvastheatre.com.

Fences, Karamu House

(Darryl Tatum as Troy and Colleen Longshaw as Rose)

If good fences make good neighbors (and successful at burglars), bad fences are a disaster. Especially those fences we erect to separate us from people we care about.

Those structures, with their literal and figurative heft, are in play in August Wilson’s Fences, now at Karamu House. This oft-produced play, which recently garnered awards with Denzel Washington as the lead on Broadway and in the film version, is sublimely well-crafted.

And in this staging at Karamu, most of the relationship drama comes through, even though there are some wrinkles along the way.  The action swirls around Troy Maxson, a volatile homeowner in a run-down section black community in Pittsburgh. Covering the years from 1957 to 1965, Wilson explores what makes Maxson tick with his friend Bono, his wife Rose and his sons Cory and Lyons. Troy’s brother, Gabriel, who suffered brain damage in an accident, is also a key part of the mix.

Troy was a great baseball player back in the day (that would be the 1930s), but discrimination kept him out of the big leagues. He has harbored resentment ever since, understandably so, and that affects his daily life. He’s even in the process of building a fence around his scrabbly yard to keep out things—maybe other people but certainly the Devil, with whom he has frequent and aggressive chats.

As Troy, Darryl Tatum does what he does very well, which is registering anger. He comes down hard on his son Cory since the young man dreams of a football scholarship. But dad is against it, trying to protect him from the prejudice he faced. While Tatum is often effective in this contentious aspect of Troy’s character, the smooth storyteller and good friend facets of Troy’s personality get short shrift. That sadly makes Troy more of a shallow character than he should be.

But that shortcoming is compensated for by the performance of Colleen Longshaw’s Rose, a warm and loving woman who is righteously enraged when she learns of Troy’s infidelity. In that moment, her pain makes Troy’s anger fade into nothingness. Also excellent are Dar’jon M. Bentley as frustrated but respectful Cory and Peter Lawson Jones as Troy’s ever faithful pal Bono. Although he has little to work with, Dyrell Barnett is fine as Lyons, a young man who would rather hang out in jazz clubs.

In some ways, the most powerful character in the play is Gabriel, since he is clearly a symbol of otherworldly innocence and redemption. Carrying a trumpet around at all times (like Gabriel the angel), sweet Gabe is just a slightly comical interlude until the end, when he is called upon to open the pearly gates. Prophet Seay is simply superb as Gabe, using his body instead of a note from the battered trumpet to help his brother gain access heaven.

This is not a perfect rendition of Wilson’s fine play, but it has moments that will stick with you for a long time.

Fences

Through October 21 at Karamu House, 2355 East 89 St., 216-795-7070, karamuhouse.org.

Plath and Orion, Cesear’s Forum

(Julia Kolibab as Jane and Mary Alice Beck as M.A.)

At a time when women are demanding that their voices be heard, this pairing of two one-acts gives voice to four females who definitely have something to say.

And although the material is often fast moving and sometimes densely intellectual, the experience is heightened since it displays the extraordinary talents of four of our area’s finest actors: Rachel Lee Kolis, Aimee Collier, Mary Alice Beck and Julia Kolibab.

In the first play, The Great Nebula in Prion by the acclaimed playwright Lanford Wilson, two thirty-something women are knocking back brandies after meeting by accident at Bergdorf’s in New York City. Set in the early 1970s, the women represent two versions of successful womanhood. Louise (Kolis) is a successful dress designer who lives in a classy apartment overlooking Central Park, where the action takes place.

Her old friend Carrie (Collier) is a former political activist who is now married and living a cosseted life in a Boston suburb. Their accidental meeting leads to some stiff interchanges and a few snippy comments that the women share with the audience as asides. But in this play, the asides are often heard by the other woman on stage, and that seems perfectly fine with them.

This clever wrinkle to the proceedings succeeds in showing how each woman is willing to give the other some space. But  once the brandy really starts flowing it’s clear that they’re having as much trouble communicating with each other as they’re having in their ”successful” lives.

Louise compares herself to Coco Chanel with acidic brevity: “I drape, Chanel cuts.” Still, it is noted that Chanel has made the same dress for years. For Carrie, her dreams of changing the world have been buried in shopping trips to New York City and, evidently, a talent for bibulousness.

In this play Wilson, who became the master of writing full plays, struggles a bit with the one-act form. The short form is demanding, showing flaws in structure and pace that can be absorbed more easily in a longer play. And Nebula teeters on the brink, never quite committing fully to a more nuanced exploration of these two women.

Speaking of women with challenges, Jane (Kolibab) and M.A. (Beck)are two literary academics in the throes of over-analysis in Plath, Sexton & the Art of Confession, created by the director of these two plays, Greg Cesear. In this piece, the women are sharing some time after attending a seminar, sorting out their critical feelings about two renowned women poets, Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton.

Those poets, both of whom suffered from severe depression, had a friendship until Plath killed herself in 1963. Sexton followed that path, committing suicide about a decade later. But while they were alive, both write powerful poetry about their most personal thoughts and inner demons.

In this play, the two female academics discuss the personal cost of artistic creation and the difference between the authentic self and the literary self. This is exceptionally thorny territory and it is a tribute to the actors that they can make this wave of heady dialogue even mildly interesting. These actors also address the audience directly, but with a bit less attitude than the first two.

It is clear that Plath and Sexton learned from each other and that led to, what: Their death, or their salvation? And what are M.A. and Jane learning from each other? That is in the eye of the beholder.

What is not up for debate is that Cesear’s Forum always produces plays that engage audiences in unique and compelling ways, even when they’re less than successful in all aspects. In short, they take risks, which are the lifeblood of art in general and theater in particular.

So we are all better for this little theater, under the lobby of the Ohio Theatre, that continues to investigate theatrical material no one else would think of touching.

Plath and Orion

Through October 27, produced by Cesear’s Forum, Playhouse Square, Kennedy’s Down Under, 1501 Euclid Ave., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org.

Alabama Story, Ensemble Theatre

Perhaps our country will be saved by bunnies.

A few months ago, John Oliver on his HBO show “Last Week Tonight” brought out an adorable children’s book that promoted good things such as love and acceptance. It was titled “A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo,” and was a send-up of another bunny book, “A Day in the Life of the Vice President,” written by Mike Pence’s daughter Charlotte.

In that first book the real-life pet of the Pence family, Marlon Bundo, is the star as he follows daddy Pence around the White House. In the second book, Marlon is re-imagined as a gay bunny that falls for the dashing bunny-stud Wesley. This jab at VP Pence’s anti-LGBTQ stances has been very successful, outselling the original Bundo book by miles.

But these weren’t the first bunnies to be involved in political dust-ups. Back in 1958, illustrator Garth Williams wrote “The Rabbits’ Wedding,” a charming little kids’ tome about a love affair and marriage of a black male bunny and a white female bunny. Within a year, it became a huge point of controversy with Alabama State Senator Edward Eddins claiming the book was promoting interracial relations.

And that brings us to the current play at Ensemble Theatre, Alabama Story, in which playwright Kenneth Jones relates the real-life controversy through the eyes of chief librarian for the State, Emily Reed. In this telling, Reed locks horns with a Senator Higgins, while a secondary story involving a young white woman, Lily, and her black pal Josh from years ago plays out simultaneously.

In all, this is an admirable and well-intentioned effort. But the script by Jones, while sweet and compassionate, is often far too instructive and didactic. It also gets tangled up in unnecessary factoids about Reed’s life and career, unable to shake off the urge to share all the jots and tittles of his Wikipedia research.

This problem is not helped by the production, under the direction of Tyler Whidden, that can’t decide what acting style is appropriate. As Reed, Anne McEvoy gives a solid and sensible portrayal of a woman fighting for literary freedom. And she is nicely matched by Cody Kilpatrick Steele who plays her faithful assistant Thomas Franklin.

Things go downhill from there. The side story of Lily and Josh is meant to provide a human face to the issues of integration and intermarriage. But Adrienne Jones and Eugene Sumlin never crack the code on this section of the play, floundering in a haze of interpersonal discomfort that doesn’t feel intentional.

But there are other characters that fare even worse under Whidden’s supervision. As the Senator, here renamed Higgins, the fine actor Joseph Milan portrays the southern lawmaker as a cross between Gov. George Wallace and Foghorn Leghorn. It is a burlesque interpretation that doesn’t match the other performances in style.

The most egregious overacting is turned in by Craig Joseph, who plays the author/illustrator Williams in addition to other characters. For some reason, director Whidden allows Joseph to turn what should be a sly, rueful speech by Williams into a fulsome, spittle-spewing rant. And some of his other small characters—an overly crippled State representative, in particular—are too showy to merge easily with the others.

So it would be a good idea to vote for library tax levies and to read “The Rabbits’ Wedding” to your little ones (it’s still in print), as well as the endearing “A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo.” But you may find “A Day in the Life of the Vice President” and this Ensemble Theatre production a tad less satisfying.

Alabama Story

Through September 30 at Ensemble Theatre, 2843 Washington Blvd., Cleveland Heights, 216-321-2930, ensembletheatrecle.org.