[NEohioPAL]Berko review: TONE CLUSTERS/WHILIBIRD (convergence-continuum)

[Roy Berko]

CONVERGENCE-CONTINUUM ENDS SEASON WITH TWO ONE-ACTS

Roy Berko

(Member, American Theatre Critics Association)


--THE TIMES NEWSPAPERS--

Lorain County Times--Westlaker Times--Lakewood News
Times--Olmsted-Fairview Times	


Tone Clusters are musical notes which are more tightly
grouped than those normally  found in chords.  They
are built by starting with a chord in its normal state
and then applying non-chordal tones which produce the
eventual cluster.  This process enables the musical
writer to retain the original chord function.  It is
this musical device that gives both the title and
writing style to Joyce Carol Oates play, ‘TONE
CLUSTER.’

First produced  in 1989 at the Actors Theatre of
Louisville, the unnerving drama centers on a father
and mother enduring an unnerving, often absurd
interview with a voice that pries into a family
tragedy.  

To explore the themes of violence and responsibility,
the play combines realistic elements with stark and
surreal imagery.  The production makes use of film,
projected slides, and live audio and video along with
two actors who sit on stage facing the audience
throughout the production.  The play’s structure
includes flashbacks, flash forwards, digressions, and
interruptions in the normal flow of organized thought.


Oates, who is an author of film scripts (e.g., ‘WE
WERE THE MULVANEYS ‘ and ‘BLONDE’) and novels, as well
as plays, explains her theatrical style by stating,
“In my writing for the theater I always have in mind,
as an undercurrent shaping and guiding the surface
action, the ancient structure of drama as sacrificial
rite.”  This is evident in ‘TONE CLUSTERS.’  The
audience is never allowed to divorce themselves from
the action.  Excessive theatricalism doesn’t give the
viewer the luxury of just sitting back and watching. 
One jarring effect after another, one startling
revelation after another invades the theatre.

The convergence-continuum production, under the
direction of Douglas H. Snyder, accomplishes Oates
intentions. 

Times Tributes multi-award winner Lucy Bredeson-Smith
gives yet another outstanding performance.  She
completely conveys the anguish, angst, frustration,
shame, confusion and guilt of the mother trying to
defend her son from being convicted for committing a
horrendous act of raping and killing a neighborhood
teenager.  Her consistent nervous mannerisms,
deer-in-the-headlights stare and twitching body are
the embodiment of an actress who has transformed
herself into a character she completely understands. 
Clyde Simon is her anguished equal.  He rages, rants,
and tries to control his conflicted outrage with
conviction.  On the other hand, Brian Breth doesn’t
clearly establish a tone as the heard but not seen
interviewer.  Is he accusing, is he neutral, does he
have an agenda for the interview?  None of this is
made clear.  In addition, his stumbles during the
interview were distracting.

Several audience members complained about the loud
blaring audio.  Yes, the play needs to be jarring, but
not so overly loud that people had to sit with their
hands over their ears.  Another question arose
concerning why the pictures being seen and the vocals
didn’t match.  In many cases this was necessary to
illustrate that what was being said didn’t parallel to
what was being seen, thus creating a conflict in
reality.  However, at times, references to the blue
painted house and the muscular physicality of the son,
needed to be real to create the idea that some of what
was being said was, in truth, factual.

The second of the one acts on the
convergence-continuum program is Mac Wellman’s 
‘WHIRLIGIG.’  

Wellman is a favorite of Clyde Simon, the theatre’s
Artistic Director.  As he says in the program, “A
bunch of us in the convergence-continuum company like
his stuff.”  He loves Wellman’s “wild use of words,
his conjuring up of unconventional characters and
strange world in which the weird appears familiar and
the familiar seems bizarre.” 

 To be honest, I, on the other hand, find Wellman to
be tedious, intentionally abstract, using endless
words to create confusion in the mind of the audience.
 Each time I have gone to see any of the four Wellman
plays that the theatre has produced I hope to see what
Simon views in the plays.  After enduring ‘WHIRLIGIG’
I  still don’t see eye-to eye with Simon. 

With that said, a whirligig is a child's toy that
whirls or spins, as a pinwheel.  The play ‘WHIRLIGIG,
shares many qualities of the child’s toy.   The
rendering is full of energy and motion, but like its
namesake, is not quite sure of its direction.  Because
of this it spins out of control, thus coming out short
of achieving the full effect on its audience.

The setting is an anonymous bus station somewhere in
America. GIRL is a young rebellious woman with
streaked green hair and the overwhelming desire to
escape her present existence. She waits, with two
suitcases, for a bus headed anywhere. She shares her
one desire to become one of the Mongolian Huns, who
"obeyed no laws and had no rules."  XUTHUS, a
silver-painted man appears.  He explains that his
original planet, the sand world of Plinth, was blown
up in a nuclear accident. He has arrived on Earth to
figure out what it is that makes humans happy.  A BUS
MAN appears and tells them that the vehicle will not
be coming.  SISTER appears and is “killed” by an oath
uttered by GIRL.  The same SISTER appears again, is
killed and she is replaced by yet another who meets
the same fate.  (Honestly, I’m not making this up.) 
The climax is supposed to allows us to realize
Wellman’s supposed message, “the surface of things is
obscure.”

As one critic, with whom I totally agree, wrote, “Is
this a play about human happiness? Is it attempting to
express contempt for a particular kind of human
existence, steeped in traditional values and safe
attitudes?  The play is obviously searching for an
escape from rules and laws, but in doing so, it leaves
its audience without a path to follow.  Just when we
think we have grasped the integral qualities of the
characters and where they are going, we are dismayed
to find that the action completely shifts and we have
not understood anything at all.”

Simon, as almost everything he directs, does a very
competent job.  The performances are quite fine as are
the production qualities. 

CAPSULE JUDGEMENTS:  ‘TONE CLUSTERS’ is an interesting
play that gets a thought provoking production.  As for
“WHIRLIGIG,’ if you like Wellman’s writing, you’ll
like this play.  If not, leave after the first act. 
You’ll get your money’s worth just having seen the
performances in ‘TONE CLUSTERS.’

‘A CONVERGENCE OF TWO ONE-ACTS’ runs at 8 pm
Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays through November 20
at convergence-continuum’s wonderfully intimate
artistic home, The Liminis, at 2438 Scranton Rd. in
Cleveland’s Tremont neighborhood.  For information and
reservations call 216-687-0074. Seating for this
production will be limited to about 50.



=====
Roy Berko's web page can be found at www.royberko.info.  His theatre and dance reviews appear on NeOHIOpal, an on-line source, which can be subscribed to at no charge by contacting neohiopal at lists.fredsternfeld.com.


		
__________________________________ 
Do you Yahoo!? 
Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. 
www.yahoo.com