SEPTEMBER 3, 1993

ENTERTAINMENT

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 17

The Cleveland theater season, 1993-1994

by Barry Daniels

It is a tradition for theater critics to become reflective at the end of the summer when we start to look at the press releases for the upcoming season. I want to honor this tradition with some general thoughts about theater and my own position as a critic for this paper. In the United States, more than in any other Western country, theater has been, until recently, largely a commercial endeavor, and the commercial theater has been increasingly dominated by escapist entertainments.

Providing escapist entertainment, when well-produced as is the case on Broadway and Broadway-generated national tours, is certainly one function that theater can have. But, if we look at the history of theater, we find another tradition in which theater can serve as a meeting place where the community gathers for reflection and celebration. It should be clear from my reviews that I favor a theater that is sensitive to the diversity in our community and encourages its audiences to think about issues that affect the community and our world.

It is from this perspective, as a minority writer, writing for a minority community, that I have refused to be ghettoized when dealing with theater in Cleveland. I do not want to deny the importance that writing for the Gay People's Chronicle has been to my own understanding of my coming out. And, of course pride of place will go to gay and lesbian theater. But as a critic, I'm most interested in those theaters that make it possible for us to cross borders and help us understand ourselves as well as the others in our community.

Cleveland has a rich and varied theater season that encompasses almost the full spectrum of the levels of production typical of American theater. The eight theaters whose seasons I'll be describing fall into three distinct categories.

We have two major regional theaters, the Cleveland Play House and the Great Lakes Theatre Company. The original mission of this type of company was to provide high quality professional productions of a more challenging repertoire than is normally found in the commercial professional theater— rather like the original position of PBS with respect to the three networks.

Community theater developed as a way for different groups within the community to express themselves and as an outlet for their creativity. The majority of the area's numerous community theaters tend to produce plays from the commercial repertoire. I've included the Beck Center from this group as it is consistently one of the best of its kind.

Cleveland is fortunate to have five theaters that fall somewhere between the traditional community theater and the fully professional companies. The Cleveland Public Theatre, Dobama Theatre, the Ensemble Theatre, the Karamu Performing Arts Theatre, and the Working Theatre produce work that is of a quality often equal to or better than that of the professional theater in the region. They select plays that are more original and rewarding than what is produced by our two major professional companies.

(The Cleveland Theatre Company, which is not planning a fall season, might be included in this group in terms of quality of production if not of play selection.)

Technically the Working Theatre and the Cleveland Theatre Company are professional theaters functioning under an Actors' Equity contract that allows them to use both professional and non-professional actors. But with this group of theaters such distinctions seem pointless.

Each of the theaters discussed below offers various types of discount subscription packages. To receive a season brochure with the schedule of performances and subscription information, you should call the box office number shown.

The Beck Center for the Cultural Arts (521-2540). Artistic Director, Scott Spence.

The Beck Center has a typical community theater season that includes musicals, Cabaret, Nunsense, and Sweeney Todd: a murder mystery, Dial M for Murder, a sentimental drama, To Kill a Mockingbird; a sophisticated romantic comedy, Craig Lucas' Prelude to a Kiss; and one additional play that has not yet been selected. Lucas' play is, of course, the wild card in this group and a play of some distinction by one of our best contemporary-and gay-playwrights.

The Cleveland Play House (795-7000). Artistic Director, Josephine Abady. The Play House is the great disgrace of the Cleveland theater scene. With its plush facilities and lavish budgets, it has been producing seasons over the past few years that hardly merit the discerning theatergoer's attention. With few exceptions it seems to design its seasons to appeal to what it perceives to be the taste of an affluent, but not very culturally sophisticated, audience. This attitude prevails in the production style as well, for, when the occasional distinguished play is performed, it is usually reduced to a rather bland. broadly acted, albeit lavish spectacle.

This is a betrayal of the mission of such publicly funded theaters. Of this year's season Abady has said, "We will look at the ideas, myths and mores which have shaped America. We will also examine the family in its various contemporary and historical configurations." One could certainly imagine a compelling and challenging season designed along these lines, but that is hardly what the Play House is offering. Three of the plays are strictly commercial fare: Herb Gardner's Conversations With My Father, James Goldman's A Lion in Winter which will provide pageantry plus a heavy dose of family values for the holiday season, and Frank McGuinness' Someone Who'll Watch Over Me about three hostages-an AfricanAmerican, an Irishman, and an Englishman-in Beirut.

The season will close with Lillian Hellman's two plays about the Hubbard family, Another Part of the Forest and The Little Foxes. Hellman is an important American dramatist, but the press release's dubbing them "sizzling dramas. . . of the stuff to which TV's Dallas and Dynasty aspired," makes one fear for the worst.

The season includes two more "offBroadway" type selections: Grace in America by Antoine O Flatharta and Holiday Heart by Cheryl West. The former is about two Irishmen who, in the course of making a pilgrimage to Graceland, visit an aunt and uncle who immigrated during World War II. The playwright provides a foreign perspective on our culture as well as a meditation on the immigrant experience. African-American playwright West's Jar the Floor was the Play House's one merited success last year. Like that play, Holiday Heart will be directed by Tadzwell Thompson. The title character is described in the press release as being "wise, unabashedly flamboyant, and a female impersonator by trade." Let's hope we're really going to be dealing with a transvestite. An additional play is yet to be chosen.

Cleveland Public Theatre (631-2727). Artistic Director James Levin. This theater's stated mission is "to produce world class alternative theater, dance, music and performance art." You can expect CPT to provide a platform for a richly diverse group,of artists from the region and from around the world. You may risk being exposed to the "shock of the new" at CPT, but you may find this to be a pleasant jolt. It is certainly vital for the health of theater in Cleveland.

CPT's tenth season includes three overlapping series. Women's Voices, Women Dancing includes three plays, a program called Women Dancing featuring local dance troupes, MA, a dance and music collaboration by the Judy Dworkin Ensemble, and a performance by American Indian storyteller, Susan Harjo. The plays in this series are The

Water Principle (see Theater Spots) which opens the season. The Yellow Wallpaper. and A Particular Class of Woman.

The Yellow Wallpaper is an adaptation by director Jane Armitage of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's story about a late 19th century woman who is driven into isolation and madness by her husband and society. This important feminist work will be staged as a one woman show featuring Amanda Shaffer, CPT's Producing Director. A Particular Class of Woman is a controversial and provocative examination of a group of strippers by Janet Feindel.

The Dance Series includes the Women Dancing program, MA, the Prairie Island Drum and Dancers who will offer a program of American Indian songs and dances. and John Giffin's Fall River Follies based on the Lizzie Borden murder trial.

The Environmental Series is made up of the American Indian Festival programs and the as yet to be determined presentations of the Circuit Earth consortium.

In addition to the three series CPT is offering an exciting selection of plays. The Dybbuk will be staged by Jairo Cuesta. S. Ansky's tale of romance and demonic possession is a landmark of the Eastern European Jewish theater. Ohio performance artist Mike Geither will premiere his new solo piece Arthur 33. James Sloviak is slated to direct a festival of Dada and Surrealist theater. Artistic Director James Levin will direct a new play.

CPT will host the Performance Art Open during the Annual Cleveland Performance Art Festival. Amanda Shaffer will direct Keith Curran's Walking the Dead, a fine new play that explores gay, lesbian and transsexual issues in an increasingly homophobic society. The season will close

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with the world premiere of Los Angeles based. African-American playwright, Silas Jones' God in Little Pieces, a twisted and hysterical take on gender, racism, God, art. theater and modern culture. Finally, I should not forget the annual New Play Festival. directed by Linda Eisenstein.

Dobama Theatre (932-6838). Artistic Director, Joyce Casey. Dobama is celebrating its twenty-fifth year on Coventry with a season that continues its commitment to bring the best of contemporary (mostly American and British) playwriting to Cleveland. In choice of plays. Dobama runs circles around the Play House. Dobama is blessed with an unusually talented group of actors and directors.

This year's season opens with Albert Innaurato's Gus and Al, an extravagant comedy about a playwright who is suddenly transported back to turn-of-the-century Vienna. Continuing its collaboration with the Karamu Performing Arts Theatre is the production of Kevin Heelan's new play, Distant Fires, a critically acclaimed drama about racial tensions on a construction site. Donald Margulies' award-winning Sight Unseen is a beautifully written and moving drama about art and love. Our Country's Good by British playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker is set in 1787, and starts out on a British slave ship bound for Australia. It develops themes of personal freedom, justice and redemption.

To commemorate its twenty-fifth season, Dobama is reviving a success from its first season, Jean-Claude van Itallie's America Hurrah, a landmark work of the experimental theater of the 1960s. Dobama Continued on Page 19

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