THE PLAIN DEALER. SATI

Pace Is Slow at Times

Dobama Reverent to 'Abelard and Heloise'

By Peter Bellamy

A tragic and legendary love affair is receiving a reverent reading with the first area showing of "Abelard and Heloise" at Dobama Theater.

And although this much written about romantic, star-crossed story is a moving one and Ronald Millar's play a literate one, there are times when the pace is slow.

Marilyn Bianchi and David Teitelbaum generally generate compassion in the ti-

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tle roles as the passionate attachment of Abelard and Heloise changes from radiant happiness into bitter and personal disaster.

One has to sympathize with a 17-year-old Heloise, who can question the divinity of God but not of her lover. and a 37-year-o'd Abelard who is so impractical about life and idealistic in religious outlook.

It might have been firstnight nerves, but at the opening night performance they were guilty of overacting in the final scene. After the previous melodramatics, which included two castrations and a flagellation, the scene would be more effective if played with restraint.

One of the things which sets the love of Abelard and Heloise apart from others is that it was not only an affair the heart, but also of the mind.

He was a widely known religious scholar and lecturer and in the 12th century. She was better educated by far than most men, as their famed published letters to each other amply demonstrate.

The drama traces their

meeting, their physical involvement, the birth of their child, his emasculation at the hands of ruffians hired by her uncle and their eventual separation as they both enter religious orders.

The play has a modern note and may attract the interest of young people in that Abelard and Heloise in their way were bucking the establishment of 12th-century Paris.

Missing from this production of the drama is the dimly lit nude scene between the lovers, which was done with such superb good taste in the London production and so badly and garrishly presented in New York.

Although the religious aura in which the pair moved is accented by the constant appearance of chanting monks, nuns and church dignitaries, Abelard in several scenes is dressed in a

jacket with leather elbow patches, like a contemporary college instructor.

His pipe smoking is definitely an anachronism since Europeans knew nothing of tobacco smoking until members of Columbus' crew saw Indians indulging in it on the island of Cuba in 1492.

Chris Colmbi Jr. is simply superb in the role of a worldly canon of Notre Dame who follows the association of Heloise and Abelard with grave misgivings. His presence, timing and resonance of voice are perfection.

Mike LiBassi is touching as the young man tortured by an unrequited homosexual love for Abelard. Marilyn Caplane as the abbess has a realistic air of severity about her. The cast of 22

the largest in the theater's history is handled with mobility by director Don Bianchi.