[NEohioPAL]Actors' Summit Memory of Water Praised in PD Review

Sat Feb 16 17:52:10 PST 2002

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Cast shows great promise in farce with serious bent 
02/16/02
Tony Brown 
Plain Dealer Theater Critic
Water, we are told a new study indicates, retains impressions of whatever 
passes through it. So does the human body. We are, after all, two-thirds 
water. 
>>    >    >    >    >    
This remembering by the human being, often unconscious, is the startling 
theme of "The Memory of Water," a play that deftly segues from outrageous 
comedy to serious introspection. 

It opened last night at Actors' Summit after a preview Thursday. 
Shelagh Stephenson's Olivier Award-winning first play has many attributes of 
a good old-fashioned British bedroom farce. 

It is set in a bedroom of a seaside house in Yorkshire. 

There are relatives, three sisters, who do not like each other: know-it-all 
physician Mary, who wears Ray-Bans in bed; stay-at-home, Granola-crunchy 
Teresa, who becomes hysterical after three sips of whiskey; and slutty 
Catherine, who can't figure out why, after sleeping with 78 of them, she 
can't get and keep a man. 

A coffin gets parked downstage. 

Mary's dimwitted married lover enters through a window. 

Teresa's flabby husband howls to anyone who's interested that he never, ever 
liked Woody Allen. 

And the funeral for which they have gathered, of the sisters' mother, 
deteriorates from a shambles into a riot. 

But playwright Stephenson has something sneakier in mind here, and from the 
very first scene introduces a sixth character, the dead woman herself. Not as 
a ghost, not as an old woman recently dead, but as a middle-aged memory. 

She appears only to Mary, who has a secret from the past and a secret desire 
to be pregnant before her biological clock goes off. 

The presence of the mother and the shadows of Mary's secrets transform the 
farcical romp into a bittersweet memory play about the child status we all 
have with our parents, and the desire many of us have to become parents 
ourselves. 

At Actors' Summit, the play gets a brisk production from artistic director 
Neil Thackaberry, a warm and homey set and lighting design by Ashland 
University faculty members Rebecca Misenheimer and Kenneth J. Martin, 
purposefully garish costumes by Mary Jo Alexander and fine performances 
all-around. 

As of Thursday's preview, these parts had not quite coalesced to produce the 
burnished comic veneer that makes British farce (or, in this case, British 
farce-plus) click. But it showed great promise of doing so. 
Among the ensemble, Lisa Ortenzi as a dowdy and bespectacled Teresa 
absolutely steals the second act with a drunken rampage of embarrassing 
revelations that is both hysterical and wounding. 
Sally Groth does a good job uncovering the hidden emotions of Mary, the most 
difficult role, but isn't irritating enough to help us understand the 
contempt the English have for people who are successful before they're 50. 

Susanna Hobrath steamrolls over everyone as histrionic, pot-smoking 
Catherine. Alex S. Cikra and Frank Jackman couldn't be more helpless as the 
menfolk who find themselves lost in a sea of raging female hormones. And Deb 
Holthus appears briefly, elegantly and with an iron grip on Mary as the 
memory of mom. 

"The Memory of Water" is quite a trick for a writer whose only previous 
experience was with radio plays. As tricky as it sometimes gets, this small 
professional theater that is still testing its cozy new home negotiates the 
choppy waters nimbly. 

Contact Tony Brown at: 
tbrown at plaind.com, 216-999-4181 

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<HTML>Cast shows great promise in farce with serious bent 
 02/16/02
 Tony Brown 
 Plain Dealer Theater Critic
 Water, we are told a new study indicates, retains impressions of whatever passes through it. So does the human body. We are, after all, two-thirds water. 
 <IMG SRC="http://www.cleveland.com/images/spacer.gif" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1" BORDER="0"><IMG SRC="http://www.cleveland.com/images/spacer.gif" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1" BORDER="0"> <IMG SRC="http://www.cleveland.com/images/spacer.gif" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1" BORDER="0"> <IMG SRC="http://www.cleveland.com/images/spacer.gif" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1" BORDER="0"> <IMG SRC="http://www.cleveland.com/images/spacer.gif" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1" BORDER="0"> <IMG SRC="http://www.cleveland.com/images/spacer.gif" WIDTH="1" HEIGHT="1" BORDER="0"> 
 This remembering by the human being, often unconscious, is the startling theme of "The Memory of Water," a play that deftly segues from outrageous comedy to serious introspection. 
 
 It opened last night at Actors' Summit after a preview Thursday. 
 Shelagh Stephenson's Olivier Award-winning first play has many attributes of a good old-fashioned British bedroom farce. 
 
 It is set in a bedroom of a seaside house in Yorkshire. 
 
 There are relatives, three sisters, who do not like each other: know-it-all physician Mary, who wears Ray-Bans in bed; stay-at-home, Granola-crunchy Teresa, who becomes hysterical after three sips of whiskey; and slutty Catherine, who can't figure out why, after sleeping with 78 of them, she can't get and keep a man. 
 
 A coffin gets parked downstage. 
 
 Mary's dimwitted married lover enters through a window. 
 
 Teresa's flabby husband howls to anyone who's interested that he never, ever liked Woody Allen. 
 
 And the funeral for which they have gathered, of the sisters' mother, deteriorates from a shambles into a riot. 
 
 But playwright Stephenson has something sneakier in mind here, and from the very first scene introduces a sixth character, the dead woman herself. Not as a ghost, not as an old woman recently dead, but as a middle-aged memory. 
 
 She appears only to Mary, who has a secret from the past and a secret desire to be pregnant before her biological clock goes off. 
 
 The presence of the mother and the shadows of Mary's secrets transform the farcical romp into a bittersweet memory play about the child status we all have with our parents, and the desire many of us have to become parents ourselves. 
 
 At Actors' Summit, the play gets a brisk production from artistic director Neil Thackaberry, a warm and homey set and lighting design by Ashland University faculty members Rebecca Misenheimer and Kenneth J. Martin, purposefully garish costumes by Mary Jo Alexander and fine performances all-around. 
 
 As of Thursday's preview, these parts had not quite coalesced to produce the burnished comic veneer that makes British farce (or, in this case, British farce-plus) click. But it showed great promise of doing so. 
 Among the ensemble, Lisa Ortenzi as a dowdy and bespectacled Teresa absolutely steals the second act with a drunken rampage of embarrassing revelations that is both hysterical and wounding. 
 Sally Groth does a good job uncovering the hidden emotions of Mary, the most difficult role, but isn't irritating enough to help us understand the contempt the English have for people who are successful before they're 50. 
 
 Susanna Hobrath steamrolls over everyone as histrionic, pot-smoking Catherine. Alex S. Cikra and Frank Jackman couldn't be more helpless as the menfolk who find themselves lost in a sea of raging female hormones. And Deb Holthus appears briefly, elegantly and with an iron grip on Mary as the memory of mom. 
 
 "The Memory of Water" is quite a trick for a writer whose only previous experience was with radio plays. As tricky as it sometimes gets, this small professional theater that is still testing its cozy new home negotiates the choppy waters nimbly. 
 
 
 Contact Tony Brown at: 
 tbrown at plaind.com, 216-999-4181 
 
 
 
 
 
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