[NEohioPAL] Cesear's Forum's COLUMBUS continues at Kennedy's Thru Dec. 16th. Cast change and critiques included.

[Greg Cesear]

Cesear’s Forum continues it’s run of Michel de Ghelderode’s CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, OR (DID YOU SAY SPHERE?) through December 16th at Kennedy’s Down Under, Playhouse Square Center. The first three weekends featured John Kolibab as Columbus and Jean Zarzour as “the Woman." The last three weekends will feature John Kolibab as Columbus and Artistic Director Greg Cesear as “the Woman." Brisk characterizations include Robert J. Williams, Nancy Telzerow and Vincent DePaul.  Let the satirical campiness and vaudeville farce continue! Here are thoughts on the play and production by the Cleveland critics: 

“Let the title be your tip-off that this isn’t your usual theatrical enterprise. Written by the fervently avant-garde Belgian playwright Michel de Ghelderode and presented by Cesear’s Forum, this dramatic fairy tale is exuberantly unhinged.” -Christine Howey , Scene 

“Ghelderode was a Belgian intellectual who toyed imaginatively with French drama through the 1920-30’s and offhandedly became an inspirational model - for absurdist 1950-60’s dramatists like Ionesco. COLUMBUS is a typical exercise. The title narrator, rather than an epic hero, is an idiot savant - more idiot than savant - who represents innocent, naturally gifted mankind, guilelessly putting its talents out there, only to be exploited, perverted and traded on for profit by establishment kings, bureaucrats and academics.” -James Damico, Free Times

“Columbus, seeks escape from the droning world and sets off to find his Eden. But he is beset at all sides by craven royalty, grasping natives and obfuscating 
intellectuals…”-Howey

“…couched in wisecrack, Groucho Marxian non-sequitur language and schticky vaudeville skit diversions, meant to impress on us its author’s serious subtextual pessimism 
with a jolly-roger brand of deep-dish gallows humor…” -Damico, “Ghelderode apparently wanted to skewer fame and colonialism with clowning and 
monkey business…” -Tony Brown, Plain Dealer

“Most plays can be classified as dramas or comedies or musicals. Ghelderode’s works defy easy classification… Don’t look for the production to make sense. Just go to see [it] to have a good time.” -Roy Berko, Lorain County Times
 
Criticism: “…despite being written in 1927, [it] comes off as an overextended ‘Saturday Night Live’ skit…wildly overact[ed]…chaos…which wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t so boring. -Brown,, “Like all the best of such brainy parlor games, COLUMBUS displays equal flashes of brilliance and brown-outs.” -Damico 

Praise: “Eighty minutes of comic delight…the ensemble of five makes a Borscht Belt commedia del arte troupe. John Kolibab’s rubber-faced Jackie Gleason-like Columbus, Nancy Telzerow’s delicate beanpole angel, Robert J. Williams’ sneery king and depressed Aztec prince, and Vincent DePaul’s hapless sailor with trousers that won’t stay closed. Reigning over all is the divinely insane cabaret schtick by Jean Zarzour - her tangos and rhumbas are worth the price of admission alone.” -Linda Eisenstein, Cool Cleveland, “John Kolibab, whose half-Laurel, half-Hardy knowing ingenuousness adds immeasurably to the evening’s fun, and which meshes in contrapuntal harmony with Jean Zarzour’s various cabaret turns…” -Damico , “John Kolibab, he of Zero Mostel mobile face and body, is hysterical as Columbus. His lines flow as if he is making them up on the spot. He is often as surprised by what he says as is the audience. Jean Zarzour, who, as
 the show biz term states, ‘eats the scenery’ (destroys everything in her path) as she dances, sings and acts like someone one-step away from being deranged. She is hilarious. -Berko

“But this problem of escaping seems to confront modern man as much as it did the Italian discoverer. Men have always tried to escape because destiny is hard.”
 -Michel de Ghelderode   CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS OR (DID YOU SAY SPHERE?), Fri. & Sat at 8 pm, Sunday at 3 pm, through December 16th, Kennedy’s, Playhouse Square Center, 216-241-6000. All seats $15.


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