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Saturday, August 26, 2023
2024 Fall CLE-area Theater Calendar
Monday, August 21, 2023
Cleveland Orchestra and Audra McDonald...who could ask for anything more?
 The sky was clear, the temperature ideal, the Cleveland Orchestra was in perfect pitch, conductor Andy Einhorn was enthusiastic, and Audra McDonald was Audra McDonald---witty, relaxed, filled with wonderful stories, and in full-voice. Even her floor-length multi-shaded blue gown was occasion right! Yes, AN EVENING WITH AUDRA McDONALD, the August 13, 2023 Blossom Music Festival program, was a night to remember. I was first exposed to Audra McDonald in 1995 when she debuted in a pre-Broadway production of Terrence McNally’s MASTER CLASS. It was love at first exposure. Since then I have had the pleasure of seeing the six-time Tony winner, that’s more performance wins than any other actor, on Broadway in CAROUSEL, RAGTIME, PORGY AND BESS, LADY DAY AT EMERSON'S BAR AND GRILL and FRANKIE AND JOHNNY IN THE CLAIR DE LUNE, on television (National Medal of Arts telecast and RAISIN IN THE SUN), and in an earlier concert at the Blossom Center. It was my honor, as a member of the American Theater Critics Association, to vote for her for induction into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2017. I even had the tenacity to walk up to her restaurant lunch table the day I saw PORGY AND BESS and talk to her. She was as charming in person as she is on the concert stage. McDonald, who is not shy about stating her philosophical views, as evidenced in her Blossom concert comments, is known for defying prejudice and racial typecasting. Her performances as Carrie in the 1994 revival of CAROUSEL and Lizzie Curry in the 2007 revival of 110 IN THE SHADE made her the first black woman to portray those traditionally white roles in a major Broadway production. AN EVENING WITH AUDRA McDONALD showcased musical theatre songs from her career, from shows in which she hasn’t appeared, as well as jazz favorites and personal revelations. The between songs commentary included charming self-deprecating insights, family stories and personal revelations. She knows how to charm an audience! The evening opened with an enchanting version of “The Carousel Waltz,” from Rodger and Hammerstein’s epic CAROUSEL. The selection is the opening of the musical. It exposes the major characters and sets the mood for the tale. Her opening number was the stirring “I Am What I Am,” from LA CAGES AUX FOLLES, often referred to as the gay national anthem. Other songs in the evening’s program included a jazzy version of “It Don’t Mean a Thing if It Ain’t Got That Swing,” the swing Duke Ellington classic, “I Could Have Danced All Night” from THE KING AND I, PORGY AND BESS’s “Summertime,” “Before the Parade Passes By,” from HELLO DOLLY, Kermit the Muffet’s “It’s Not Easy Being Green” a tribute to self-pride and knowing who you are, and “Some Where”- (”There’s a Place for Us”) from WEST SIDE STORY. Carrying out further the evident theme of the evening, McDonald sang a mash-up of “You Have to Be Carefully Taught” from SOUTH PACIFIC and “Children Will Listen” from Steven Sondheim’s INTO THE WOODS. The applause was deafening! Capsule judgment: AN EVENING with AUDRA McDONALD was an emotional and artistic evening of song, narration and orchestral music. It was a night to remember! BRAVO!!! The Blossom Music Festival ends its 2023 season with “DISNEY IN CONCERT: THE SOUND OF MAGIC,” with music from PETER PAN, MOANA, ALADIN, THE JUNGLE BOOK, FROZEN, THE LION KING, FANTASIA, and ENCANTO (September 1-3) and “DISTANT WORLDS: MUSIC FROM FINAL FANTASY, which showcases the music used throughout the Final Fantasy game series. | |
Monday, August 14, 2023
EXIT, PURSUED BY A BEAR
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Saturday, August 12, 2023
FUN HOME
Alison Bechdel is a cartoonist who came to national attention via her long-running comic strip “Dykes to Watch Out For.”
She combined her life story and her comic strip style in the graphic memoir, FUN HOME. It is the adoption of this book that went on to become the musical which was nominated for twelve Tony Awards, winning five, including Best Musical.
The original book was controversial. In October, 2006, an attempt was made to have FUN HOME removed from the Marshall, Missouri Public Library due to its “graphic” content.
In 2008, an instructor at University of Utah made the book a reading in her course. This was followed by an attempt by a student group to have the book removed from the course’s syllabus.
In 2013 a conservative group challenged the inclusion of the book as a reading selection for freshmen at the College of Charleston. The issue became so heated that the South Carolina legislature attempted to cut the college’s funding because “this book trampled on freedom of conservatives.” The issue was only resolved when the state Senate voted to restore the funding, but redirect the funds towards the study of the United States Constitution and The Federalist Papers.
As lately as 2015, several students at Duke University objected to the book on moral and/or religious grounds.
In FUN HOME, now on stage at Cain Park, we follow the path of Alison Bechdel of Beech Creek, Pennsylvania, as she goes from being a tween, through her experiences at Oberlin College, where her realization of her homosexuality evolves, to her becoming aware of her father’s life as a closeted homosexual, to his ultimate suicide and her full acknowledgement that, as the closing song of the musical states, “Every so often there was a rare moment of perfect balance when I soared above him.”
Joanna May Cullinan, the show’s director, says of the script, “I feel very strongly in theater and musical theater. There are a lot of stories to be told and this was told from the perspective of someone not seen before. There have been other musicals with gay themes but not with these family dynamics. It’s a great show for young adults to take their parents to if they want their parents to understand them a bit more.”
FUN HOME was the first mainstream musical with a lesbian protagonist.
Jeanine Tesori’s music and Lisa Kron’s lyrics are is the guts of the tale.
Poignant songs such as “Welcome to Our House on Maple, Street,” (a visit to the family home/funeral home by a visitor from the local historical society), “Come to Fun Home” (Young Alison and her brothers, John and Christian, act out a commercial for the family funeral home while playing in a casket), and “Raincoat of Love,” (small Alison fantasizing about what it would be like if her family was as happy as TV’s Partridge Family), expose the frustration of the family’s life.
In the song “Not Too Bad,” Alison illustrates her anxiety about starting college, while in “Changing My Major,” Alison expresses her falling for Joan, her lesbian lover. It is a key song of the score as it serves as both the comic relief and center fulcrum on which Alison later understands herself.
Alison’s mother attempts to cope with her ostrich-with-head-in-the-sand existence by escaping from reality through her piano playing as illustrated by “Helen’s Étude.”
We watch as her father, Bruce, has contact with a series of young men, is arrested, but continues to pursue these fleeting contacts. Each is a band aid to patch up frustration with his life. Depression which finally results in his suicide by stepping in front of an oncoming bus (“Edges of the World”). Alison, in the finale, reminisces about her past in “Flying Away.”
In New York the show was staged in the round, with the audience on all sides of the stage. The local production is done on a proscenium stage. Having seen both versions, I believe that the proscenium staging is much better. The scenery helped give a visual quality to many of the scenes, and words were not lost as the actors faced one section of the audience but not others. The intimate show becomes up-close and personal on the intimate Alma Theatre stage.
The production, under the able direction of Joanna May Cullinan, is of the highest quality.
Some may find the three Alisons confusing at the start. But quickly it becomes apparent that adult Alison (Tasha Brandt), Small Alison (Juliana Shumaker) and Medium Alison (Gabi Ilg) are the same person at different stages of life. All three Alison’s have fine singing voices.
I wish Gabi Ilg had been more enthusiastic in her rendition of “Changing My Major” as it would have added the needed humor to lighten the heavy tale, and showed how her transition into her new found lesbianism was a positive experience.
Scott Esposito, one of the area’s best actors (Broadwayworld and Cleveland Critics Circle recognitions), is properly conflicted as the troubled Bruce. He allows viewers to feel pity for this man who is a victim of society’s attitude toward gay men and feeling the need to hide who he really is. His lasting effect on the members of his family, especially Alison, are readily apparent due to Esposito’s clear angst-driven character development.
Natalie Green empathically develops a wife and mother who finds herself having to decide how to be a supportive spouse and good parent, while being unable to take the action she probably should have early in the marriage.
Zoë Lewis-McLean (Joan, Alison’s lover) develops a realistic and consistent characterization. Though probably a little too old for the role, Danny Simpson nicely portrays the young men Bruce pursues.
Simon Keating and Jaiden Shauf-Dressman (Alison’s younger brothers) are believable in their roles, handling both the comic and singing nicely.
The lighting and costumes work to enhance sensitive and focused directing. Trad Burns‘ set-design perfectly captures the Victorian nature of the house and Sara May’s furnishings and props are all era-correct. The orchestra, under the direction of Rachel Woods is excellent.
CAPSULE JUDGMENT: This is a dramatic message musical which deserves the accolades which it has won. It gets a must-see production, with the caveat that audience members be aware of the subject matter.
FUN HOME runs August 10–27. Showtimes are: Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7:00 pm and Sundays at 2:00 pm. For more tickets call 216-371-3000 or go to: https://www.cainpark.com/148/Buy-Tickets.
Thursday, August 10, 2023
SIX THE MUSICAL: a history lesson that rocks the Palace!
 SIX THE MUSICAL, now on stage at the Palace Theatre, had an unusual journey to the Great White Way. Conceived by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, the script had been a student project presented at Scotland’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Next it was staged in London’s West End, then in Chicago, for a pre-Broadway out-of-town residence, and then at sea aboard three Norwegian Cruise Lines ships. | ||
Wednesday, August 09, 2023
Humor filled ERMA BOMBECK: AT WIT’S END runs as a pre-season attraction at CPH
“Guilt, the gift that keeps giving.” Marriage has no guarantees. If that's what you're looking for, go live with a car battery.” “Encourage independence in your children by regularly losing them in the supermarket.” “Never go to a doctor whose office plants have all died.”
What do these quotes all have in common? They are material written by the subject of the one-person, eighty-minute play, ERMA BOMBECK: AT WIT’S END, a Suburban Outlaw production now on stage at The Cleveland Play House.
Yes, Erma Bombeck, the woman who wrote such best-selling books as The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank, If Life is a Bowl of Cherries—What Am I Doing in the Pits? and Motherhood: The Second Oldest Profession.
If you are a person of a certain age, Bombeck’s name is familiar, you grew up reading or listening to someone tell you about one of the country’s most beloved humorists, who gave voice to the everyday joys and struggles faced by the women of her day. As well as being a leading figure in the fight for passage of the ill-fated “Women’s Rights Amendment.”
ERMA BOMBECK: AT WIT’S END is the product of the combined minds of Chagrin Falls natives Allison and Margaret Engel. It has been staged in venues in such places as Washington, D.C., Buffalo, Denver, Rochester and, now in Cleveland.
It stars Pam Sherman, one-time writer of her own “Bombeck-like” column, “The Suburban Outlaw,” who was convinced by Mark Cuddy, then Geva Theatre Center’s Artistic Director, and now CPH’s Interim Artistic Director, to play the role at the Rochester, New York facility. That production broke box office records for productions causing the run to be extended twice due to popular demand.
Erma Louise Bombeck was born in Bellebrook, Ohio, and raised in Dayton. She started her professional writing career at the Kettering-Oakwood Times in 1964, with weekly columns. The following year, the Dayton Journal Herald requested pieces. After three weeks, the articles went into national syndication in 36 major U.S. newspapers, under the title "At Wit's End."
By the 1970s, her columns were read semi-weekly by 30 million readers of 900 newspapers in the U.S. and Canada.
“Her work stands as a humorous chronicle of middle-class life in America after World War II, among the generation of parents who produced theBaby Boomers.”
“Erma, with her wonderful, pointed wit and her very sharp powers of observation, brought that whole world out into the open,” said Margaret Engel, co-playwright. “Her fans were legion. They loved her because she illuminated their lives which were funny, tragic, comic, interesting, but really had been so unremarked upon before Erma Bombeck took the world by storm.”
The play, presented without intermission, which is set in Bombeck’s “Dayton home,” is directed by Mark Cuddy, and chronicles the facts and fantasies of Bombeck, spoken in her own words. It is filled with many of her own pet phrases and oft-quoted clever ideas.
More stand-up comedy act than play, the CPH staging kept the older demographic audience, who seemed to be familiar with many “Bombeckisms,” amused throughout.
Sherman, a noted actress, as well as a lawyer and writer, was comfortable with the role. Maybe her long background with the script was in effect the night I saw the show, as she seemed to working on auto-pilot, saying lines, rather than actually giving the illusion of spontaneity of first-time awareness of the clever dialogue. The lack of dynamism didn’t keep the audience from having a good time.
Capsule judgment: ERMA BOMBECK: AT WIT’S END, CPH’s “pre-season treat,” will delight those of a “certain age” who are familiar with the era and role of women as described in Bombeck’s references. Modern feminists will roll their eyes at many of her situational references.
Tickets for the Outcalt Theatre production, which runs through August 20, are available at clevelandplayhouse.com or by calling (216) 241-6000.
