Stirring, historically important, must-see THE ISLAND is being staged by Ensemble Theatre

 

Former South Euclid resident and Brush High School graduate, Dr. Alan Wieder, is on a quest "to stem the time of forgetfulness."  The oral historian, who has been on the faculties of both South Africa's University of Western Cape and Stellenbosch University, is concerned that "Few young South Africans know of the contributions or the sensibilities regarding the social justice and the revolution against class disparity and racism in the world." Wieder has been working since 1999 with South Africans who fought the apartheid regime.  His Apartheid based books include Voices from Cape Town Classrooms, Teachers and Comrade, and Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War Against Apartheid. Apartheid, which means "distantiation” in the Afrikaans language, was a racist political and social system which took place in South Africa from 1948 to 1994.  It was racial segregation, under the all-white government, which dictated that non-white South Africans (a majority of the population) were required to live in separate areas from whites, use separate public facilities, while contact between the two groups was basically forbidden.    The apartheid system was abolished when a new constitution was ratified abolishing the previous system of government.  Nelson Mandela was elected to the Presidency of South Africa when multi-racial elections were held in April 1994, thus becoming the first black person to hold the position in that country.   THE ISLAND, is basically a true story.  It is set in the notorious Robben Island prison, where Nelson Mandela was held for twenty-seven years.     The script centers on John and Winston.     John was imprisoned for belonging to a banned organization, while Winston, was incarcerated for burning his passbook in front of the police. This was a serious crime, as the passbook was used to identify, segregate and control the South African minority.   As black political prisoners, the duo spends their days at hard labor and their evenings rehearsing Sophocles' ANTIGONE, which will be presented before their fellow prisoners and their captures.   In their enactment of ANTIGONE, Winston takes the part of Antigone, who defies the laws of the state by burying her brother, while John portrays her uncle Creon, who sentences her to die for her crime of conscience, thus drawing a parallel between Antigone's situation and that of the black political prisoners.    The play has four scenes. It opens with a lengthy mimed sequence in which John and Winston, two cell mates imprisoned on Robben Island, shovel sand in the scorching heat, dumping the sand at the feet of the other man, so that the pile of the sand never diminishes. This is designed to exhaust the body and the morale of the prisoners.   After yet another day of hard labor they tend each other's wounds, share memories of times at the beach and rehearse.   During one of the rehearsals, John is called to the governor's office. He returns with news that his appeal was successful and his ten-year sentence has been commuted to three years: he will be free in three months.  Winston’s reaction, though he is pleased for his cell-mate, has overtones of jealousy.   The final scene is their performance of ANTIGONE. “After Creon sentences Antigone to be walled up in a cave for having defied him and done her duty towards her dead brother, Winston pulls off Antigone's wig and yells ‘Gods of Our Fathers! My Land! My Home! Time waits no longer. I go now to my living death, because I honored those things to which honor belongs.’ The final image is of John and Winston, chained together once more, running hard as the siren wails.”   The themes of racial segregation, obedience and civil disobedience, brotherhood, freedom, memory, imagination, the transformative power of performance, the role of the individual versus the state, and mental versus physical liberation, run throughout the well-written and conceived script.   Although the play is in English, Afrikaans and Xhosa words are also spoken.  The well-planned program includes a glossary of those terms, as well as clarifying messages from the director and a historical perspective.   The Ensemble production, under the focused direction of Sarah May, is transfixing.  She not only displays a clear understanding of the intent and purpose of the authors, and is well-versed in staging a script and working with actors, but is invested in the purpose of the play.     The two-person cast is outstanding.  Both Nnamdi Okpala (Winston) and Robert Williams (John) totally inhabit their characters.  They don’t act the roles, they assume the personhoods of each of the men.  Their severe but meaningless labor, their physical and mental torture, and their friendship are totally clear.  This performance at its finest!   Capsule judgment:  THE ISLAND helps to keep the history and human torture of apartheid alive, and like plays, books and films about the Holocaust, keeps the vision, thoughts and memories of those horrible times alive, so that they are never repeated again.  This is an absolutely must-see production!   THE ISLAND runs October 27th- November 12th, 2023 Ensemble’s new location at Notre Dame College (4545 College Rd., South Euclid).  Free, monitored parking is available.   For tickets call 216-321-2930 or go on-line to Ensemble Theatre

LUNGS

As a counselor, I have often shared with clients the need to talk-out issues in their relationships.  It’s one of the central techniques of mental health practitions.   Duncan Macmillan, in his two-person play LUNGS, which is now in production at Ensemble Theater, illustrates this talking-out process.     Unfortunately, in his oft-praised script, he seems to give us a model of when talking out becomes an issue, when people excessively talk and analyze their relationships.  In fact, he seems to illustrate how to talk a relationship to its death.   A review of LUNGS, which debuted in 2011 at the Studio Theatre in Washington DC, praised the play as "original and striking", but slighted the characters as "cliche".  Another review stated, "Duncan Macmillan's distinctive, off-kilter love story is brutally honest, funny, edgy and current. It gives voice to a generation for whom uncertainty is a way of life through two flawed, but deeply human, people who you don't always like but start to feel you might love. It's bravely written, startlingly structured.”     The nameless characters, the script identifies them as M and W, find themselves examining the scope of their lives together, and the world around them, when they begin considering starting a family.   “In a time of global anxiety, terrorism, erratic weather and political unrest, a young couple want a child but are running out of time. If they over think it, they'll never do it. But if they rush, it could be a disaster.  They want to have a child for the right reasons. Except, what exactly are the right reasons? And what will be the first to destruct – the planet or the relationship?”   And so it goes, on and on, when every possible issue about the world, their lives, whether they are “good people,” are dissected, trisected, examined and reexamined again.     After a while it seems like the duo needs to just shut up!  Finally, as can be expected, they do and go their separate ways, childless, until they accidentally run into each other.     He is now engaged.   And, she has a secret that she carries into their conversation.  Where will this talkfest go next???   Ensemble’s production, under the focused direction of Becca Moseley, stars Katie Simón Atkinson and Robert Grant III.     Stars is the perfect word to describe this excellent cast.  They are totally natural.  Being, not acting.  There is not a moment of pretense during the production.     The production, with no intermission, even with all the talk, talk, talk, flows right along.   Capsule judgment:  The script, with its strong language and themes, is a thinking person’s play.  This is not a production for those who go to theatre to escape, to be “entertained.”  Many people will not “like” this play.  “To be liked” is not its purpose.  The author wants you to think about the role of communication in a relationship.  To think about the world in which we live.  To think about what “good” people are.  To think, about…maybe even overthink!  The production succeeds in developing the intent and purpose of the author!   LUNGS runs at Ensemble, which performs on the Notre Dame College campus on Green Road in South Euclid, from September 8 through the 24th.  For tickets call 216-321-2930 or go to tickets@ensembletheatrecle.org

THE LIGHT @ ENSEMBLE

 

Ensemble’s Cleveland premiere of THE LIGHT is theater at its finest!

 
Roy Berko
(American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Critics Circle)
 
Loy A. Webb’s THE LIGHT, which is now having its Cleveland area premiere at Ensemble Theater, introduces Rashad, a firefighter, and Genesis, a charter school principal, on what should be one of the happiest days of their lives.
 
Unfortunately, their joy quickly unravels when ground-shifting accusations from the past resurface asking, “Can their relationship survive the growing divide between them over who – and what – to believe? 
 
THE LIGHT is a reckoning that unfolds in real time and peels away the layers of truth, doubt, pain.  It implores, “is love enough?”

The play begins with a much-anticipated marriage proposal. But after an enthusiastic “Yes! Yes! reply to the proposal,” it swerves into darker terrain. It recalls a moment when a woman said, “no” and it wasn’t heard, or was ignored.

Language is important.  This play is a rom-com, a drama, as well as a tragedy. Do we have a word for that? Do we want one?

This is a tear-struck thesis play, proposing that, as Genesis says, “black women are at the bottom of virtually everything in society,” their labor undervalued, their hurt unrecognized. They deserve to be heard and seen and believed, not because they are someone’s wife or mother or daughter, but because they are human beings.”

The play is focused and creatively directed by Jeannine Gaskin, with intimacy direction by Julia Fisher.  The runway set, with the audience on each side of the stage, was attractively designed by Ian Hinz, who also did the light design.  (Sidenote:  holding the final light cue for a brief few more seconds would have added to the suspenseful ending.)

The two-person cast is superb.  Both Nicole Sumlin (Genesis) and Ananias J Dixon (Rashad)  give flawless, emotionally vulnerable performances.  Neither acts their characters, they live their personas.  Tempers are held in check and then explode.  Tears are held back and then flow.  Each is stoic and then totally vulnerable.  Bravo!  Bravo!  Bravo!  

CAPSULE JUDGMENT:  Every once in a while a theater-goer is blessed with an emotional and logical experience that lives for a long time in their being.  Such is THE LIGHT, Loy A. Webb’s searing must-see play that is having its Cleveland area premiere at Ensemble Theater.
 
THE LIGHT runs through June 11, 2023 at Ensemble Theatre, housed in the main academic building’s Performing Arts Center, at Notre Dame College.  There is free parking in the easily accessed lot at 4545 College Road (off Green Road), South Euclid.
 
For tickets call 216-321-2930 or go to www.ensembletheatrecle.org

Existential THE RIVER runs slowly, but is thought-provoking

In the late 1950’s through the 1980s The Theatre of the Absurd theatrical movement was the intellectual rage.  Based on the concept of Existentialism which asks, “what happens when human existence lacks meaning or purpose and communication breaks down.”  The structure of the plays often centered on the finishing point,, being the same as the starting point with the ultimate conclusion being silence.
 
Playwrights of the era included Samuel Becket, Eugene Ionesco and Edward Albee. Their plays have a common denominator — the "absurd", a word that Ionesco defined as " that which has not purpose, or goal, or objective."  Albert Camus describes the purpose of that era’s plays to illustrate that “the human situation as meaningless and absurd.”
 
Probably the most memorable works of that era were WAITING FOR GODOT and WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRIGINIA WOLF?
 
Though Jez Butterworth is not of that age or era, his play THE RIVER is the ilk of those times in structure and message.  It is haunting, dark, often off-putting for a lack of clear purpose, and circular in charting a curved line from beginning to end.   
 
There is a mystery throughout the show that we continue to think about, but, in fairness to potential theatre-goers, is not fair to reveal.
 
What can be revealed?  It’s an eerie tale and a borderline ghost story that also feels firmly grounded in a familiar reality.  
 
The setting is a small Minnesota cottage on a river.   A small wooden table and several chairs sit in the center, a fully stocked kitchen, a cooler, a library nook, and an oven complete the space.  
 
“The plot concerns the main character of The Man as he brings his girlfriend, The Woman, to his family’s cabin.  As the sun sets, there is much that happens in this cabin—things that will happen and have already happened, as time begins to fold into itself. This eeriness might be jarring in the early going, but impeccable acting and strong directing truly make The River feel human even in its strangest moments.”
 
As previous reviews say of the play, “The greatest attribute of THE RIVER is it’s a somber conjuring to the idea of memory and thoughts of the bygone past.”  
 
Also, “The River is one of the better plays about love. Not love as manifested in a relationship with a plot so much as just that big, unwieldy emotion of love itself--the need, the desire, the ache, the way one willingly deludes oneself into thinking you can ever fully escape your romantic past and not have it somehow taint your relationships in the present.”  
 
As well as, “I spent much of this play trying to figure out what was happening, but in a good way. The kind of figuring out that keeps you completely engrossed and on the edge of your seat to see what happens next.”
 
The Ensemble production is well conceived by director Ian Wolfgang Hintz.  The presentation, performed on a runway stage with the audience seated on both sides, which allows for an interactive intimacy as the audience members share the stage with those on the other side of the stage, thus making for a shared intimacy.
 
The acting is totally natural, which each performance being of a real, fleshed out person.  No acting by Dan Zalensky (The Man), Becca Moseley (The Woman), Laura Rauh (The Other Woman) and Laurel Hoffman (Another Woman), just being.  Being to the degree that the audience is sucked into the happening, the reality.  
 
It’s so real that one can’t avoid being involved in the decapitation of a fish…complete with the head and entrails removed as a meal is prepared. Sounds gross…it isn’t.  It is just part of the required reality.
 
Is this a murder mystery?  Is it an analogy of fishing? Is it a study of relationships and loneliness?  Is it a statement of the meaning or life?   Is it???.
 
Capsule judgment:  THE RIVER is not a play for everyone.  Go if you love theatre which is well directed and acted; but, as with most absurdist plays, it doesn’t render a solution.  It is a play that, even after you leave, doesn’t let you go.  
 
THE RIVER runs through March 5, 2023 at Ensemble Theatre located in the Performing Arts Center of Notre Dame College, 4545 College Road, South Euclid. For tickets call 216-321-2930 or go to www.ensembletheatrecle.org

Ensemble’s DESCRIBE THE NIGHT is a lesson in Russian conspiracy theory with modern day implications

 

DESCRIBE THE NIGHT, which is now on stage at Ensemble Theatre, is Cleveland Heights native Rajiv Joseph’s 2018 Obie Award winner for Best New American Play.  Joseph was named a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play BENGAL TIGER AT BAGHDAD ZOO which starred the late Robin Williams in its Broadway run.  Many of his plays have had Ensemble productions.   Joseph is noted for his keen skill of writing about contemporary and historical events.  He is credited for his “having an ear for the heartbeat of the moment.”     Using a technique referred to as “ecstatic truth.” DESCRIBE THE NIGHT is a play about stories.  It begins with a historical fact and then spins outward, “like a fractal pattern with the truth as its seed but something grander than plain truth.”  It is fascinating, while often being confusing due to its’ covering an extreme length of time, with little help in keeping ideas organized.    Set in Russia over the course of 90 years, the play weaves the stories of seven men and women connected by history, myth and conspiracy theories.  Much like the typical Russian classic novel, the epic tale is filled with many names, references to historical events and places, and leaves ideas hanging.   The stories include references to many people, famous and unknown, including writer Isaac Babel, a Jewish Russian, a shy young man with dreams of being a successful writer, but traumatized from the Polish-Russo war, in which he served as a wire service journalist—a job he took in order to experience something in life he could write about.    Also noted is Nikolai Yezhov, a violent man, who in 1937-40, is the Head of Stalin’s Secret Police and his wife, Yevgenia.     Vova is a KGB agent In 1999-2010.  He is a politician of enormous stature. Deeply self-assured, yet terrified of the world.    Urzula, who in 1989, is an immigrant, living in Dresden. She is the grand-daughter of Yevgenia.   Mariya is a Russian, who is a journalist for a state-run newspaper. He was born and bred in Moscow and Mrs. Petrovna, a 70-year-old Russian, is the owner of a laundromat.    These characters are woven into a historical time line that includes such events as The Great Purge, the consolidation of the power of Joseph Stalin, the murder of Leon Trotsky, and The Katyn Massacre, a mass shooting of prisoners of war during World War that was a cold-blooded act of political murder. Despite overwhelming evidence of Soviet responsibility, Moscow blamed the Germans, and for the rest of the war Washington and London officially accepted the Soviet countercharge. When the Polish government-in-exile in London demanded an international inquiry, Stalin used this as a pretext to break relations between Poland and the Soviet Union. Also referred to is The Smolensk Plane Crash in which a plane carrying Polish president Lech Kaczyński crashed, causing Poland to lose a large sum of the country’s leadership. It happened at a time where Russia and Poland were starting to acknowledge Russian responsibility for the Katyn Massacre.    Without a knowledge of the events referred to in the play, it is often difficult to follow the story.  A series of visuals alerting to the year(s) and location might help keep the audience on-track.   Ensemble’s production, under the adept direction of the theatre’s Artistic Director, Celeste Cosentino, leads the audience on an interesting historical experience.  Though at times frustrating, the over-all effect is a fascinating.   The cast, Joe Pine, David Vegh, Laura Perrotta Ford, Aaron Elersich, Katie Wells, Kyle Huff, and Laura Rau, form a unified unit.  Each develops their characters effectively.    Capsule judgment:  This journey of myth, loss, power, and pain leaves a message of how historical facts, rumor and subterfuge tells a story that opens the door to the present day, which evolves from experiences of the past.  Anyone interested in history and philosophy should be captivated by this tale.    Ensemble’s DESCRIBE THE NIGHT runs through November 13, 2002 at Notre Dame College, 4545 College Road, South Euclid.   For tickets call 216t-321-2930 or www.ensembletheatrecle.org

Compelling and relevant Clybourne Park by Ensemble Theatre

 

Bruce Norris’s Clybourne Park is now on stage as the opening play in Ensemble Theatre’s debut year in its residency at Notre Dame College.  The play highlights racial, sexual and gender attitudes.  It won both the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the 2012 Tony Award for Best Play.   Clybourne Park is a follow-up to Lorraine Hansberry’s Raisin in the Sun, which looks at a house in a fictional Chicago urban area, before and after the Younger family moved in to it.     Hansberry’s play, titled after Cleveland poet Langston Hughes’ “Dream Deferred,” was the first script by a Black woman to be produced on Broadway.  It starred Sidney Poitier, Cleveland native Ruby Dee, Louis Gassett, and Claudia McNeil as Lena “Mama” Younger, the woman of the family, who decides to invest the payment from her dead husband’s insurance into the purchase of a house in Chicago’s all-white Clybourne Park neighborhood in order to allow the family to have a better life.  The play won the 1969 Tony Award for best play.   Raisin in the Sun was based, in part, on Hansberry v. Lee (1940), a real court case that centered on a class action suit by Lorraine’s father and the NAACP against Chicago’s restrictive covenants against Blacks living in certain areas of the city.   Hansberry wrote of the situation and the lawsuit: “That fight also required our family to occupy disputed property in a hellishly hostile ‘white neighborhood’ in which literally howling mobs surrounded our house. ... My memories of this ‘correct’ way of fighting white supremacy in America include being spat at, cursed and pummeled in the daily trek to and from school. And I also remember my desperate and courageous mother, patrolling our household all night with a loaded German Luger (pistol), doggedly guarding her four children, while my father fought the respectable part of the battle in the Washington court."   Norris, who is white, portrays fictional events, based on his imagination of what happened when, after the Clybourne Park neighborhood became almost all black due to white flight, and then later became an “in-place” for young white “liberal” families to buy and restore, or wreck and replace properties in the now gentrified area, complete with a Whole Foods.    Clybourne Park introduces Bev and Russ, who are in the process of packing to move out of their recently sold home in Chicago’s Clybourne Park neighborhood in September, 1959.     The house is filled with negative memories.  Kenneth, their son, a depressed Korean War vet, who was accused of slaughtering civilians, hung himself in the home’s attic.  The neighbors, rather than befriending the couple, shuns them.   In Raisin in the Sun, when the neighborhood association finds out that the house at 406 Clybourne Street has been sold to “negroes,” in order to “save the community’s property values” because of extrapolated Black in-flight, the association sends Karl Lindner to attempt to bribe the Youngers to not move into “their” neighborhood.  The pay-off is rejected.    In Clybourne Park, about an hour after Lindner went to the Younger family’s apartment, he comes to the Clybourne Street house to plead with Bev and Russ to consider the neighbors and the property values and cancel the sale.     Conversations reveal that Bev and Russ turned over the sale to a realty company, so they did not know anything about who bought the house.  They refuse to revoke the sale to the Youngers.   Arguments, the history of Bev and Russ’s conflicts with the neighbors and their need to move, ensue.     Their black housekeeper and her husband, who has come to take her home from work, become involved, when a trunk containing Kenneth’s mementos, which was buried in the backyard, are unearthed.  This lays the foundation for the riveting second act.   The setting for the second act of the play is exactly fifty years later in the same 406 Clybourne Street house as the first act.  Now it is dilapidated.  Present are an African American couple, the wife, who we find out is the great niece of Lena “Mama” Younger, a young white couple who are planning to demolish the house and building a grand new house on the property, and several lawyers.   There is underlying tension.  The planned replacement house doesn’t fit the building code requirements, and there are problems over the wording of the deed, but, most importantly, there are unspoken issues.     After much running around in verbal circles, racial, gender and sexual orientation issues emerge, full blast.  Offensive jokes, accusations, and insults abound. What hasn’t been said, is now vividly addressed.     During the mayhem, a workman, who is preparing the ground for the excavation for the new house’s foundation, enters.  He brings in the buried trunk, which is eventually opened.  The contents lead to the emotional climax of the play.   The play’s humor and pathos are nicely refined.  The cast (Brian Pedaci, Mary Werntz, Jailyn Sherell Harris, Christian Achkar, Nnamdi Okpala, Dan Zalevsky and Hannah Storch), except for some projection issues by several performers, are on target.  They generally don’t act; they realistically are the person they are representing.     In the past, Ensemble has been noted, and received awards for their use of electronic media to create proper illusions.  It is too bad that they didn’t use their skills to better represent the house as it transforms from a nice facility in act one to a run-down hovel seen in act two.  We needed to see the ripped wallpaper, boarded up windows and wooden floor streaked with water stains, not a map of the area.  That visual effect would have helped complement and complete this strong production.   CAPSULE JUDGMENT:   Clybourne Park is a unique evening of theater.  The Pulitzer Prize play is well written and relevant.  The production is basically well-conceived by director Celeste Consentino.  This is a go see production!   Clybourne Park runs through October 9.  For tickets call 216-321-2930 or go to https://www.ensembletheatrecle.org/   Special note:  After many years in the former Coventry Elementary School in Cleveland Heights, has emerged from the pandemic as the resident theatre partner of Notre Dame College, located in the Performer Arts Center of the campus located at 4545 College Road in South Euclid.  There is free parking in a lighted lot, adjacent to the theatre entrance.

Compelling “INTIMATE APPAREL” at Ensemble

Lynn Nottage is an African American multi-prize-winning playwright.  A rare and important theatrical voice, she is noted for her lyric and powerfully expressive use of language and her examining the plight of marginalized people.  

“She's an actor's gift with sly one-syllable humorous punch words; poetic paintings of physical and emotional landscapes; dramatic conflict that pulls no punches and is not afraid to make sympathetic characters unsympathetic; and an intimate knowledge of loneliness and passion.”

Her writing style is well-showcased in “INTIMATE APPAREL,” now on stage at Ensemble Theatre.  It is a turn-of-the-century “feminist lament of intelligent, talented women defined and controlled by men,” and is based on the real life experiences of her grandmother.

The time is 1905, the place is the tenement district of New York City. Esther, a plain-looking talented black seamstress, lives in a boarding house for women.  She sews intimate apparel for clients who range from wealthy white patrons to black prostitutes.

With a desire to open a beauty parlor to cater to African American women who have no place to relax and recover from their daily drudgery, Esther has squirrelled away a sizable amount of money, which she keeps hidden in a patch-work quilt on her bed.  

She notes that many of the boarding house patrons marry and move away.  They are not as talented as her, and probably not any more attractive, which leads to her frustration in not finding a husband, thus insuring a different future.

By way of a church acquaintance, she begins to receive letters from a lonesome Caribbean man named George Armstrong who is working on the Panama Canal. 

Esther is illiterate, so one of her white patrons not only reads the letters to her, but also respond.  The letters flow back and forth and soon George has persuaded her that they should marry, sight unseen. 

In reality, Esther has become attracted to a Hasidic shopkeeper from whom she buys fabric, but the impossibility of the match is obvious to them both, and Esther consents to marry George. 

When George arrives in New York, it becomes readily apparent that he is not the man he presented himself to be and is using Esther as a means to enter this country and to finance his whoring, drunken ways.  

After a short period of time, in order to get rid of him, Esther gives him her hard-earned money, returns to the boarding house where her journey started determined to use her gifted hands and her sewing machine to “refashion her dreams and make them anew from the whole cloth of her life's experiences.”

The Ensemble production, under the meticulous direction of Sarah May, is spell-binding.  The performances are nicely textured and the pathos wells to the surface.

Kimberly L. Brown gives a tour-de-force performance as Kimberly.  We feel deeply for the woman because, not only from the way in which the part is written, but because Brown fashions a real person with real feelings and emotions.  Bravo!

Leilani Barret is slimy-right as the smooth-talking George, a well-honed manipulator and player!  

Craig Joseph was tender and charming as the shy Mr. Marks.  Zyrece Montgomery was on-point as the prostitute.  Both Reva Golden, as Mrs. Dickson, and Diana Frankhauser, as Mrs. Van Buren, did a nice turn in developing real women.

Ian Hinz’s set, light and projections help develop the right visual effects.

Dialect coach Chuck Richie did an excellent job of working with the actors in perfecting the needed vocal characterizations without having accents so heavy that they could not be understood.

Capsule judgment: “Intimate Apparel” is a well-honed script which gets a superior production under the adept direction of Sarah May.  This is a play well-worth seeing!

“INTIMATE APPAREL” runs through February 16, 2020 on Fridays and Saturdays @ 8 pm and Sundays @ 2.  Ensemble is housed in the former Coventry School, 2843 Washington Blvd, Cleveland Heights.  For tickets call 216-321-2930 or go online to http://www.ensemble-theatre.org

Ensemble’s next production is ‘KINDERTRANSPORT” featuring Dorothy Silver, Cleveland’s first woman of the stage, and Laura Perotta Ford, from March 6-29, 2020.  Tickets will go fast, so call now and reserve your seats!

“The Penelopiad” relates a tale of mythology, with contemporary undertones, at Ensemble

Most Americans know Margaret Atwood as the author of “The Handmaid's Tale,” the multi-award-winning television series.  

It, like “The Penelopiad,” which is now on stage at Ensemble Theatre, explores the theme of women living in a patriarchal society and the various means by which they attempt to gain individuality and independence.  

“The Penelopiad,” originally was published as part of the “Canongate Myth Series,” in-which contemporary authors rewrite ancient myths. 

In both the play and novella, Penelope reminisces on the events of “The Odyssey.”  In Greek theatre tradition, a chorus of the twelve maids interrupt Penelope's narrative to express their view on events. 

The feminist-themed play, which is vintage Atwood, uses simple and easy to understand prose, often filled with humor and naïve rhyming schemes, to build on the conflicting connection between Penelope and Helen of Troy, as well as telling of the relationships between Penelope, Odysseus, their son and his caretaker.  

The two-hour production, handily directed by Celeste Consentino, is a study of the Greek format of theatre, using traditional staging, costumes and play-format to tell a tale with contemporary implications.  

The 12-woman supporting cast is strong. Each effectively plays various roles by changes of voice, body positions, and slight costume alterations.  

Cleveland Critic Circles and Broadwayworld.com award winner, Amy Fritsche, is compelling as Penelope.  She schemes, she rants, she contrives.  She clearly creates a woman, living in a man’s world, who needs to use all her guile so as not to lose control of what she deems are her rights.

The technical aspects of the play work well.

It should be noted that the production contains strong language and themes and simulated sexual content.

Capsule judgment: “The Penelopiad” is a well-directed and performed play which exposes the audience to the lost art of Greek theater production while telling a contemporary tale of women caught in a man’s world.  It will be of interest to true theater-goers who appreciate quality theatrics.

“The Penelopiad” runs through November 10, 2019 on Fridays and Saturdays @ 8 pm and Sundays @ 2.  Ensemble is housed in the former Coventry School, 2843 Washington Blvd, Cleveland Heights.  For tickets call 216-321-2930 or go online to http://www.ensemble-theatre.org

Ensemble’s next production is Lynn Nottage’s “Intimate Apparel” from January 24-Feruary 23.  Sarah May directs.

“By the Bog of Cats,” a tale of Irish angst on stage at Ensemble

As “By the Bog of Cats” opens, “we see Hester, dragging a dead black swan across the snow and ice at the Bog of Cats. The Ghost Fancier has come to collect her but realizes that he is early as Hester is still alive. The Ghost Fancier exits and says that he will return at a later time.”  And, after an enveloping several hours, he returns.  By then, mystical and mythical elements, ghosts, curses, the role of motherhood, abandonment, betrayal and ethnic prejudice, and death have been revealed.

Ensemble Theater has chosen to start this, its 40^thseason, with Mariana Carr’s play, “By the Bog of Cats,” which is loosely based on Greek myth and Euripides’s tragic play, “Medea.”

Carr is generally recognized as being the greatest living Irish playwright.

In “Medea,” the female anti-hero, who has been cast aside by her husband, Jason, for a younger woman, seeks revenge.  To get back at him, she kills their two sons and his new bride, leaving Jason bereft.

Though the ending is quite different, there are “Medea” parallels in Carr’s script.  But the writing and performance elements are pure Irish, especially as it takes on the themes of displacement and disposition, elements not present in Greece of old, or that of its tales.

The play, which takes place in the Bog of Cats, a bleak, foreboding and frozen rural landscape in the Irish midlands, touches on Irish myth, but adds the well-known characteristics of Irish alcoholism, depression, greed and the outcome of living in a land of constant rain, clouds, gloom and doom.

“By the Bog of Cats” is as much a character-study as it is a plot-driven script.

Hester Swaineis a forty-year-old woman who has lived on the bog her entire life. When she was seven years old, her mother, Josie, abandoned her. Hester has been waiting there for her mother ever since.  

Hester has a daughter, Josie, with Carthage Kilbride, a much younger man.  She is very resentful that Carthage has left her to marry Caroline, the daughter of wealthy landowner, Xavier Cassidy, so that he can inherit the Cassidy farm. 

During their relationship, Hester encouraged Carthage to have ambitions beyond his social class as a laborer's son, even giving Carthage the money to buy his first land.  

Josie is the same age that Hester was when her mother left her.  The girl is caring and loving.  She fore-shadow’s the horrific conclusion to the play by singing sad songs her mother has taught her.  

Carthage's mother looks down on Hester because Hester belongs to the “tinker class,” people, who, much like European gypsys, wander in search of odd jobs to make money, by using trickery and sexual favors.  Mrs. Kilbride, a self-centered, greedy person, constantly focuses on issues of social class and money and calls her granddaughter a “little bastard” because she was born out of wedlock.  

Xavier Cassidy is a wealthy landowner and father of Caroline, who “stole” Carthage from Hester.  In order to ensure his daughter’s happiness, and to rid himself of the guilt of having been responsible for driving off Hester’s mother, who he used for sexual pleasure, is determined to also rid the bog of Hester.

The cast is solid.  

Multi-Cleveland Critics Circle and Broadwayworld award winner, Derdriu Ring, gives another accolade worthy performance as Hester.  Ring, who was born in Ireland, and trained at The Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin, personally knows the ways of the Irish.  She doesn’t have to portray Irish angst; she lives it on-stage.  Her accent and realistic character development add a special quality to the production.

Though he can’t reach Ring’s levels, Daniel Telford gives a very credible performance as Carthage.

Julia Kolibab is properly repugnant as Mrs. Kilbride. She gives the kind of performance that encourages an audience to “boo” her character in the curtain call, while cheering the portrayal.

The fragmentary set and lighting, does little to really take us to the bog.  The significance of the up-stage knotted cloth streams seems unclear.

Celeste Cosentino nicely paces the work, tutoring the cast well on keeping the characters real, even in the fantasy scenes.

Capsule judgment:  Much in the tradition of Brian Friel and James Joyce, “By the Bog of Cats” is one of those Irish angst plays that shares the customs and folkways of the Emerald Isle.  The Ensemble production is nicely conceived, with a master class in performance skills by Derdriu Ring. 

“By the Bog of Cats” runs through September 29, 2019 on Fridays and Saturdays @ 8 pm and Sundays @ 2.  Ensemble is housed in the former Coventry School, 2843 Washington Blvd, Cleveland Heights.  For tickets call 216-321-2930 or go online to http://www.ensemble-theatre.org

The horrors of addiction showcased in “Water by the Spoonful” at Ensemble

Chemical addiction is the “compulsive need for and use of a habit-forming substance (such as heroin, nicotine, or alcohol).”   In those with addiction, the substance controls the person, rather than the person being able to control their desire to stop usage or change their addictive behavior.

“Water by the Spoonful,” now in production at Ensemble Theatre, is the second installment in Quiara Alegria Hudes “The Elliot Trilogy,” three tales centering on Marine vet Elliot Ortiz.

 The Pulitzer Prize winning play tells a story of people connected by familial bonds, an online community, trauma and recovery.

Addiction “recovery” is a complicated and debilitating process which often leads to short term successes and numerous failures. 

Traditionally, it starts with the “victim” admitting they are an addict, not only to themselves, but to those who serve as their recovery team and potential support individuals.  Without this first step, the limited path to recovery is nearly impossible.

Recovery assistance takes various courses including institutional programs, drug or alcohol anonymous groups, chemical replacement (e.g., Methadone usage), a rational recovery approach, or going cold turkey, when the individual attempts to fight the addiction on their own.

Though the fulcrum of “Water by the Spoonful” is Elliot, the catalyst of the story is addiction, especially the drug addiction of his birth-mother, Odessa, the chat room monitor for an on-line group of addicts.

Eliot, who served in Iraq, is haunted by memories, including a recurring dream about an Arabic message which translates as the phrase, “Can I please have my passport back?”

The events of the real world transpire, superimposed on those of the online chat room, where people recovering from drug addiction come together for comfort and support.
 
This is a tale not only of addiction, but of family. 
 
In the cyber-world, “Orangutan,” “Chutes & Ladders,” and “Fountainhead,” the usernames of the addicts, have formed a type of family.  They interact, share information, and act as a support group for the members.
 
In the real world there is the natural family of Elliot, his cousin Yaz, their beloved aunt Mami Ginny (Odessa’s estranged sister) and Odessa.  They are dealing with the tragic death many years ago of Elliot’s sister, the demise of Mami Ginny, Elliot’s battle with PTSD, as well as Odessa’s on-going battle with drugs.
 
Elliot and Yaz confronting the details of Mami Ginny’s funeral, Odessa overdosing, the sprinkling of Mami Ginny’s ashes in Puerto Rico, Chutes & Ladders and Orangutan developing a special bond, Fountainhead becoming Odessa’s caretaker, Yaz buying Mami Ginny’s house in North Philadelphia, and Elliot buying a one-way ticket to Los Angeles to try and make a living as an actor, completes the tale.
 
The Ensemble production, under the direction of Celeste Cosentino, is a thought-provoking experience.  While sometimes difficult to hear the dialogue because of the long, narrow stage-seating arrangement, the story flows easily. 

Though sometimes lacking in developing fully realistic characters, the cast (Inés Joris—Odessa, Santino Montanez—Elliot, Tania Benites --Yazmin, Greg White—Chutes & Ladders, Kat Shy--Orangutan, Jason Markouc—FountainHead, Meshal Al Sunaid—Professor Aman/Ghost/Policeman) is generally effective.

Capsule judgment:  Pulitzer Prize winning “Water by the Spoonful” is a thought-provoking play which gives a clear picture of the horrors of addiction, the difficulty of overcoming its grip, and what it is to live with a force controlling you, instead of you controlling it.

“Water by the Spoonful” runs through May 17, 2019 on Fridays and Saturdays @ 8 pm and Sundays @ 2.  Ensemble is housed in the former Coventry School, 2843 Washington Blvd, Cleveland Heights.  For tickets call 216-321-2930 or go online to http://www.ensemble-theatre.org

Historical and Socially Important “A RAISIN IN THE SUN” at Ensemble

It is entirely appropriate that the songs of Nina Simone were heard before, during intermissions and following the Ensemble production of Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun.”  Simone, an activist and singer, was strongly influenced by Hansberry, who was the first female African-American playwright to have a play performed on Broadway. 

Hansberry, in turn, was influenced by Langston Hughes.  Hughes, who spent his formative years living in the Fairfax neighborhood in CLE, was a force in the Harlem Renaissance, which was the African American artistic movement in the 1920s that celebrated black life and culture.

“What happens to a dream deferred?  Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?” is a sentiment that has been seminal to the black liberation movement.  It is a line from one of Hughes’ poems and inspired not only the title of Hansberry’s award winning play, but is at the center of the script’s message.

“Raisin” is, in part. based on Hansberry’s personal experiences of having been brought up in segregated Chicago.  Her family challenged a restrictive covenant, similar those imposed upon the Forest Hills area of Cleveland Heights and parts of Shaker Heights, in which minorities were denied the right to buy homes in a specific area. 

A lawsuit, based on the family’s desire to buy a home in a “restricted” area of Chicago, brought about the Supreme Court case of Hansberry v. Lee in which the Court held that “a restrictive covenant could be contested in court, even though some of the parties involved may have been included in the prior class of neighborhood landowner.”  It opened the floodgates to suits that eventually overcame the covenants.

The plot of “A Raisin in the Sun” centers on Walter and Ruth Younger, their son Travis, along with Walter's mother Lena and Walter's sister Beneatha, who live in a dilapidated two-bedroom apartment on Chicago's south side.

Walter is barely making a living as a limousine driver and desperately wishes to become wealthy. His plan is to invest in a liquor store in partnership with Willy and Bobo, his street-smart acquaintances.

Walter and Beneatha's father has recently died, and Mama is waiting for a life insurance check for $10,000.

The question of how the money will be spent becomes the center of the Younger’s existence. 

Eventually Mama puts some of the money down on a new house, choosing an all-white neighborhood over a black one for the practical reason that it happens to be much cheaper.  Mamma gives the rest of the money to Walter to invest with the provision that he reserves $3,000 of it for Beneatha's medical school education.

What happens with the money given to Walter, whether the Younger family moves into the “white” area of Chicago, and whether their dreams, like the raisin in the sun, will dry up and die, fills out the remainder of the plot.

Ensemble’s production, under the focused direction of Celeste Cosentino, grabs and holds the audience attention.  Though, at times, the acting levels dip below what they should, the over-all effect is powerful.

Angela Winbourn nicely textures the role of Lena Younger, creating a woman of strong convictions and an abundance of love and loyalty for her family, the kind of female figure who has, from slave times, been the backbone of the African-American family. 

Nicole Sumlin develops a consistent Ruth, who has conflicted views of how her husband is role-modeling for their son, and the wisdom of some of his far-fetched dreams of being a “success.”

Zyrece Montgomery nicely develops the image of the “new” black woman who is not willing to follow the patterns of the past and wants to reach for a role as a doctor, not a domestic worker, while still being a dreamer.

The rest of the cast, Eugene Sumlin (Walter Lee), Easton Sumlin (Travis), Nnamdi Okpala (George Murchison), Leilani Barrett (Joseph Asagai), Chris Bizub (Karl Linder) and Bobby Williams (Bobo) all develop meaningful characters.

Capsule judgment: “A Raisin in the Sun” is a play about the need to keep fighting to make this a more just and free world.  This is a play which is meant to counter those who believe that disdain for those who are different is what would “make America great again.”  Ensemble does the script proud.  It is a production very worth seeing!

“A Raisin in the Sun” runs through February 17, 2019 on Fridays and Saturdays @ 8 pm and Sundays @ 2.  Ensemble is housed in the former Coventry School, 2843 Washington Blvd, Cleveland Heights.  For tickets call 216-321-2930 or go online to http://www.ensemble-theatre.org

Ensemble’s next production is A MOON FOR THE MISBEGOTTEN, Eugene O’Neill’s classic script in which Jodie, an amazon-like woman, finds herself drowning in a wave of self-pity and remorse that results in her facing a new challenge to her dauntless spirit from March 8 to 30, 2019. 

“East of Eden” finds a clear direction at Ensemble

John Steinbeck is one of America’s great authors.  His realistic and imaginative writings, which contain a strong social perception, are dramatic and humorous, look at the downtrodden, and generally have everyman protagonists. 

Many of his 27 books, including “Cannery Row,” “Of Mice and Men,” and” The Grapes of Wrath,” which has sold more than 14 million copies, are considered literary epics.

His “East of Eden,” has been adapted for the stage and is now being performed at Ensemble Theatre.  

“East of Eden” harkens broadly back to the Biblical Cain and Able story.  In this case, it’s the tale of twin boys, born to Adam and Cathy Trask.  Shortly after the boys were birthed, Cathy, a former prostitute, abandons the family and returns to her old trade.  The twins are told their mother died and are brought up by the solitary and silent Adam and his Chinese houseman. 

Adam and his family move to the city, from their farm.  It’s the tumultuous time leading up to World War I, a period of speculation and adjustment. 

Adam, in an impetuous act, attempts to develop a method of refrigerating California produce to ship to the east coast where fresh lettuce, for example, is not available during winter months.  The experiment fails and he loses much of his money.

Aron, the favorite son, falls in love with Abra, a local girl, and seems destined to fulfill the dreams of his father by going to college.  Caleb, the other brother, wants to gain his father’s admiration and borrows a small amount of money, speculates on a crop of beans, and makes a small fortune.

Caleb, aware of his mother’s existence, goes to see her.  Afterwards, he offers his profits to Adam to make up for the refrigeration loss.  When the father refuses to take the money the boy, in an act of defiance, takes the naïve Aaron to see their mother.  Traumatized, Aaron, acting out of shock and panic enlists in the army. 

The refusal, act of defiance and the enlistment prove tragic for all three Trask men.

“East of Eden” is an ambitious, over 600-page novel, which has been nicely-adapted by Frank Galati into an effective stage play.  Though long, three acts, with two intermissions, there is enough action and intrigue to hold the audience’s attention.

The play is well-directed by Ian Wolfgang Hinz.  The pacing is languid, but appropriate for the subject matter.  The acting is generally of a high level.  The characters are nicely etched and develop the intent and purpose of the material.  The era-correct set works well for quick and effective scene changes.

Scott Miller sulks and is introspective, well-developing Adam.  This is a man torn by guilt, filled with self-pride, and feeling the result of rejection by his ill-selected wife.  Dana Hart is effective as Sam Hamilton, Adam’s friend.  Jill Levin is properly stoic as Cathy, the mother who has rejected her children and is most comfortable being a madam.  Both August Scarpelli (Aron) and Kyle Huff (Caleb) have some fine moments, but sometimes fail to fully texture their performances, acting rather than reacting.  Leah Smith is believable as Abra.

Capsule judgment: ”East of Eden” is a classic Steinbeck novel which has been adapted into an excellent stage play.  The production, though long, is effective and is a theater piece well-worth seeing!

“East of Eden” runs through November 11, 2018 on Friday through Sundays at Ensemble Theatre, housed in the former Coventry School, 2843 Washington Blvd, Cleveland Heights.  For tickets call 216-321-2930 or go online to http://www.ensemble-theatre.org

Ensemble’s next production is “Around the World in 80 Days,” an adaptation of Jules Verne’s class adventure.  It is an interactive adaptation for the whole family.  It will be performed from November 30-December 16 in Ensemble’s Playground Theatre.

Must see “Alabama Story” is compelling at Ensemble

Kenneth Jones, the author of “Alabama Story,” now on stage at Ensemble Theatre in its Ohio premiere, stated in an interview, “In May 2000, while reading the New York Times, I came across the story of Emily Wheelock Reed, the former State Librarian of Alabama who had been challenged by a segregationist state senator in 1959. Senator E.O. Eddins [of Demopolis, Alabama] demanded that a children’s picture book — Garth Williams’ The Rabbits’ Wedding, about a black rabbit marrying a white rabbit — be purged from the shelves of Alabama libraries on the grounds that it promoted race-mixing. Their conflict was reported worldwide. Before I finished reading the article, I knew this was an idea for a play.”

He went on to say about the play that resulted: “It’s a romance, a political thriller, a memory play, a workplace drama, a tearjerker, a comedy, a discussion about race, censorship and political desperation, and a rumination on the power of books. Most important, it’s a play about how we behave when we face terrible circumstances — how character is revealed in times of transition, change and crisis.”

He adds, “I hope that “Alabama Story” sparks a memory of a beloved book, the person who gave it to you and the day you realized that a turning of the page could be both terrifying and wonderful, and that — on some level, no matter what our differences — we all share the same story.”

The story takes place in still segregated Montgomery, Alabama as the civil rights movement is in its early stages.  A no-nonsense female head of the State Library system makes book selections based on the National Library Association’s recommendations.   A bigoted state senator, a true son of the south in political views and conservative religion, tries to impose his racist views upon all he touches.  This includes the tomes on library shelves.

A parallel story evolves when two childhood friends meet by chance, as adults, the same year as the library incident.  She is the white daughter of a wealthy cotton plantation owner, and he is the son of her family’s long time black cook.  An incident between the girl and boy caused his mother and him to leave “the big house.”

Inspired by real events, “Alabama Story” touches on Civil Rights and censorship issues in the Deep South.   Presently, in these days of rising bigotry fueled by the irrational tweets of an impulsive President, the play, which has been billed as “a humor-laced social-justice drama is a sort of vest-pocket cousin To Kill a Mockingbird,” which also was the target of campaigns to rid it from libraries, has real implications.

Ensemble’s production, under the well-focused direction of Kenneth Jones, is riveting, compelling and emotionally eye-opening. 

The entire cast shines.  Anne McEvoy portrays head librarian, Emily Reed, with conviction.  This is a well-textured quality performance that presents a real person, speaking real language, in a totally believable way.

She is ably supported by Cody Kilpatrick Steele as Thomas, her assistant, Eugene Sumlin as Josh, the black man, Adrienne Jones as Lily, the white “rich” girl, and Craig Joseph in multiple roles.  Though, at times, he overly postures thus creating a stereotype rather than a real person, Joseph Milan is properly pompous and hateful as Senator Higgins.

Walter Boswell’s set design, Ian Hinz’s lighting, and Tyler Whidden and Becca Moseley’s sound, all add to the production.

Capsule judgment: “Alabama Story,” a well written account of a real life incident is theater at its finest displaying excellent acting, an enveloping script and a technically complementing design. This is an absolutely, must see production!

 
“Alabama Story” runs from September 7-30, on Thursdays through Sundays at Ensemble’s Theatre, housed in the former Coventry School, 2843 Washington Blvd, Cleveland Heights.  For tickets call 216-321-2930 or go online to http://www.ensembletheatrecle.org

Ensemble’s next production is a staged adaptation of John Steinbeck’s 
“East of Eden.”  It will appear in the theatre’s Mainstage Theatre from October 19-November 11.

Fascinating investigation of a world that many don’t know at Ensemble

The South Side of Chicago is noted for its gritty streets, drug dealers, drive by shootings and pressure for Black men and boys to not only protect their turf, but be “prideful” and not allow themselves to be slave to the ways of the “massa” (the white bosses).

Charles Smith, the Distinguished Professor of Playwriting at Ohio University, where he also heads the Professional Playwriting Program, writes gritty poetic language with a black man’s soul.

In “Jelly Belly,” Smith’s script which is in performance at Ensemble Theatre as part of Black History month, the author offers an “unremittingly bleak portrait of inner-city life and the enormous pressure on working-class black men to be gangstas.”

We meet Jelly Belly, the drug kingpin of the neighborhood, who is just out of jail.  He obviously doesn’t have much fear of returning to prison for his first task is to entice Kenny, a young man who was a former “salesman” to return to working for him.  The youth is caught between his hopes for prosperity through hard “legit”work and the opportunistic life of a drug pusher.

Jelly Belly also tries to convince Mike, a married man with a child, who has been working construction to “be a man” and not work to become a tool of the white establishment. 

Smith depicts his tale of complex issues in a single afternoon presented on a plain front porch.  He makes clear the difficult path of someone like Mike, with no education but lots of work experience, who has recently been passed over for a supervisor’s job by a young white college graduate.  A “boy” who Mike is going to have to train to do the job.

The production, under the steady hand of Ian Wolfgang Hinz, is well-cast and justifiably can be a shock to audience members who are not used to the everyday pressure of drugs, guns and the underbelly of society.

Greg White is properly slimy as Jelly Belly.  He makes the character easy to hate through his smooth presentation and confident ways.  White continues to impress as one of the area’s top actors.

Lashawn Little (Mike) gives a nicely textured performance as the family man whose wife and family have given him a reason to persevere against the pressures of his neighborhood and societal patterns.

Mary Francis Renee Miller is rock solid as Barbara, a no-nonsense woman whose purpose in life is to make a strong stand for family, husband and son.

Last year Jabri Little was selected by both the Cleveland Critic’s Circle and BroadwayWorld-Cleveland as a “RISING STAR” (a promising newcomer).  His portrayal of Kenny proves the critics were correct.  This is one talented young man.

Robert Hunter’s portrayal of the drug-zoned-out Bruce, brings laughter, laughter which brings tears as a symbol of everything bad that can happen to a black, uneducated man who has been manipulated into walking through life as a dead, worthless soul.

Walt Boswell’s simple set design works well.

Capsule judgment: The 90-minute play sends out chilling messages on the grim reality of drugs, guns, and the plight of the American Black man in the modern world. This is a production which commands to be seen!  It’s not a pleasant sit, but it is definitely one worth the effort!

“JELLY BELLY” runs through February 25, 2018 on Thursdays through Sundays at Ensemble’s Theatre, housed in the former Coventry School, 2843 Washington Blvd, Cleveland Heights.  For tickets call 216-321-2930 or go online to http://www.ensemble-theatre.org

Ensemble’s next production is The 2018 Colombi New Play Festival, March 9-25, followed by “Angels in America Part Two:  Perestroika,” April 27-May 20.