[NEohioPAL]REVIEW: Someone Is Going to Come in Cool Cleveland

[David Benson]

Someone is Going to Come @ Tyst, Hiram College 7/22

What: A stylized symbolic work about a married couple who buys a dilapidated 
house on a deserted beach -- and their fears and hopes about intimacy and 
the intrusion of strangers into their relationship.

Reasons to go: You'll never see anything else like this 65-minute work by 
Norway's Jon Fosse, an austere poetic text including many looping 
repetitions --"someone is going to come", "no one is going to come", "we can 
be alone in each other". It's an eerie Nordic mix of Beckett's absurdism and 
Pinter's menace. Christopher Ferencik lends needed energy and a bit of 
sexual menace as the former owner of the house, who keeps interrupting the 
strained couple's supposed desire for privacy.

Caveats: This looks like a killer-hard play to do, even for professionals of 
great subtlety and depth, and it's beyond the abilities of this overmatched 
cast. Samuel Joseph Perry is best expressing the despair and paranoia of a 
man who can't trust his much younger wife, but poor Brooke Slanina is like a 
deer caught in the headlights, frozen into one pained, shut-down expression 
by Fosse's difficult text. Director/designer David Vosburgh does them no 
favors, trapping them behind furniture for long stretches, and his cottage 
set is way too literal -- although the house closing up on them like a trap 
is a nice effect.

Backstory: One of the heroes of Tyst this year has been Ellen Summers, the 
plucky Hiram College English professor who provides pre-show lectures a half 
hour before each opening weekend performance. Her commentary about the 
playwrights, style, and history of the works -- scholarly and far-ranging -- 
substantially add to audience enjoyment and comprehension of what's on 
stage.
Target audience: Audiences interested in experimental or absurdist work.

Details: Tyst, Bates Hall, Hiram College, Hiram. Thru Thu 8/7. 216-771-9118, 
http://www.tyst.org
from Cool Cleveland contributor Linda Eisenstein linda at coolcleveland.com

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