[NEohioPAL]Berko review: THE EXONERATED (Dobama)

[Roy Berko]

DOBAMA’S ‘’THE EXONERATED’ UNNERVING GLIMPSE AT
REALITY

Roy Berko

(Member, American Theatre Critics Association, Dance
Critics Association)

--THE TIMES NEWSPAPERS--

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

Punishment is supposed to fit the crime, but what if
there is no crime, only punishment?   This is the
question at the center of ‘THE EXONERATED,’ now on
stage at Dobama Theatre in its Cleveland debut.  

This is no ”sit back and appreciate it” play.  This is
an in-your-face real life expose.  We experience the
tales of  six real people who were placed on death row
due to poor or corrupt police work, thoughtless
defenses, and crooked judges and politicians.  

The play was born when authors Jessica Blank and Erik
Jensen attended an anti-death penalty conference and
heard a phone call from someone on death row in
Illinois who shouldn’t have been there. The duo
decided that they would investigate the prevalence of
the phenomenon and set off on a country-wide journey
in search of the real-life "exonerated."

The authors indicate that "What we really have to say
is, every time there’s a horrendous crime, the more
likely it is that an innocent person will be
convicted. In our six cases, every single jury member
who voted to convict those people was 100 percent
convinced they were putting away the right person." 
One of author’s goes on to state, "I don’t expect
people to see the play and say, ‘Down with the death
penalty.’ I expect people to see the play and say,
‘Oh, this is real. This is happening. We have to do
something.’"

The question might be asked, “How common is the arrest
and conviction of people who are then proven to be
innocent?”   The staff of the Center on Wrongful
Convictions, which pioneered the investigation and
litigation of wrongful convictions, estimates the
numbers are massive.  Their efforts, on behalf of nine
Illinois death-row inmates,  were a driving force
behind both Governor George H. Ryan's decision to
suspend executions in Illinois and the current
nationwide movement to reform the criminal justice
system.

The movement against false imprisonment has many
believers, including a number of actors who have
volunteered their time to portray the characters in
‘THE EXONERATED’ in various national theatres.  Some
of these stars include Marlo Thomas, Brian Dennehy,
Richard Dreyfuss, Sara Gilbert, and Jill Clayburgh.

To pre-experience the play, just imagine everything
you did between the years 1976 and 1992. Now remove
all of it. Those 16 years were taken away from Sunny
Jacobs, convicted and sentenced to death for a crime
she did not commit.  Her story, and the other five,
are tales told in their own words.  This is, in fact,
a spoken-word collage.  There is little real action,
but the words are powerful and compelling enough to
hold your attention throughout the long one-act
presentation.

The Dobama production is well directed by Joel Hammer.
 The pace is right, the emotional feelings are right,
even the humor is well-keyed.  This is a unit piece
and the cast is mostly believable in their portrayals.
 

Elizabeth Townsend, true to the character’s name,
Sunny, smiles through her tears as she tells the tale
of how she and her husband, who was electrocuted in a
torturous manner, were framed by a killer who later
repented.  Jimmy Wood is right on as the black
dread-locked Gary, who was manipulated into a
“confession” and even after being released is denied
his right to return to his previous profession as a
surrey horse racer, but ironically is allowed to buy a
gun.  

Allan Byrne is properly pathetic as an innocent man
whose conviction results in his brother’s total
emotional demise and eventual murder.  Jeff Grover
plays many roles, all of them well.  Darryl Lewis acts
as our poet narrator.  He sounds much like James Earl
Jones and is generally effective, but often looks over
the heads of the audience as he speaks, instead of
directly at us.  This is distracting.  We need the
consistent direct contact.  

Kirk Brown fails to reap full emotional impact as a
propertied murderer of his mother and father.  His
initial confusion, which worked well, doesn’t transfer
well into the concluding scenes.  Nate Cockerill does
many of his multiple roles well, but has difficulty
with some of the accent switches.  Marnie Task and
Sonia Bishop are effective in various roles.

The sparse set consists of nine chairs and a screen on
which silhouetted scenes are acted.  One might
question the need for the silhouettes, as the words,
rather than the visual images are the important
elements and the acting out of certain actions pulls
the viewer from the words to unnecessary images.

CAPSULE JUDGEMENT:   ‘THE EXONERATED’ is a play you
will not soon forget.  The play was selected as one of
the 10 best plays of 2002 in both the New York Times
and Time magazine and deserves that recognition.

‘THE EXONERATED’ runs through March 20 at Dobama
Theatre which is in its last year in its Coventry Road
home.  The company will go “on the road” next year,
performing at such venues as Cuyahoga-Eastern Campus
and the Cleveland Playhouse before moving into their
new home in the Cleveland Heights Library on Lee Road.
  For information and tickets call 216-932-3396.





=====
Roy Berko's web page can be found at www.royberko.info.  His theatre and dance reviews appear on NeOHIOpal, an on-line source.   To subscribe to this free service via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.fredsternfeld.com/mailman/listinfo/neohiopal.


		
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