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June 5, 2009

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A dozen men mark the road to

love, until our heroine meets

That woman

by Anthony Glassman

The course of true love never did run smooth, or so the old adage goes. Never has that codicil been made clearer than in Melanie Marnich's Quake, playing through June 27 at Convergence-Continuum Theater.

Marnich's piece follows a young woman named Lucy (Erin Scerbak) who travels across the country, looking for her one true love.

Along the way, she meets a number of men who seem like they might be "the one," only to let her down in the end.

Her first love cheats on her, and the jock keeps talking about his ex-girlfriends all the time. Everywhere she goes, the almost-were and the also-ran crush her hopes time and again.

Were that the extent of the story, it would be a cute little play, but far from the domain of Convergence-Continuum, the home of all things way the hell off the beaten track.

There is also That Woman (Laurel Johnson), the "astrophysicist gone bad" who goes on a cross-country serial killing spree. Lucy idolizes her, worships her . . . loves her.

They meet in Lucy's dreams, then in a gas station and finally in San Francisco, where That Woman helps Lucy come to terms with her quest for love. Along the way, Lucy tries out all the men in the cast at least once. Christian Prentice plays the aforementioned jock, and he is also t the new age healer Angel Bruce, along with Guy and a flight attendant. Stuart Hoffman is the gas station attendant and two completely failed boyfriends; Tom Kondilas plays the auto repairman whose raw sexuality is streaked with a strong dose of violence, and Robert Hawkes plays a wealthy pageant owner, a psychoanalyst and a janitor whose encounter with Lucy is perhaps the most pure relationship she has.

Kondilas also provides the video clips that give the play an almost cinematic air. The audience can now see the outside of the coffee shop where Lucy meets a boyfriend, they can see her walking around, without the necessity of changing the sets.

Given the size of the performance space at the Liminis, ConvergenceContinuum's home theater, the video conceit is a marvelous one. The troupe has always made great use of their limited room, and this is simply another exploration into alternative use of location.

In fact, that is one of the things most disconcerting about the production. People appear from every direction, as if they had been plants in the audience. Director Arthur Grothe makes the most of all those tools at his disposalcast, set, props, everything-to bring the quest for love to life.

"To me, this play represented what theater should be, a fantastical escape into another world, where weird and illogical events take place, which combine to tell the audience a story in the most vital, creative way possible," he wrote in his director's notes for the production.

Quake runs Thursdays to Saturdays until June 27 at the Liminis, 2438 Scranton Road in Cleveland's Tremont neighborhood. Tickets are $15, $12 for students and seniors. For more information or to purchase tickets, go to www.convergence-continuum.org or

call 216-687-0074.

313

Erin Scerbak as Lucy, Christian Prentice as Guy

*R

Stuart Hoffman as Brian, Erin Scerbak as Lucy

ROB WACHALA (3)

Laurel Johnson as That Woman (the astro-physicist gone bad)