[NEohioPAL] CPH's "Heaven's My Destination" Review

[Bob Abelman]

Heaven's My Destination a thought-provoking Wilder ride

 

Bob Abelman

News-Herald, Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times, Geauga Times Courier

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

This review appeared in the News-Herald 5/08/09

 

In 1935, when Thornton Wilder wrote his novel Heaven's My Destination, about a traveling salesman who sells textbooks and saves souls, literary critics were at a loss.  They did not know whether the author intended to be satirical or to make a serious statement about life.

 

The Cleveland Play House's world premiere production of Lee Blessing's adaptation of the novel, which opened April 24, resolves this confusion with a resounding "well, yes." It is both poking fun and being profound. It's just not always easy to tell one from the other. 

 

The most unambiguous thing about Heaven's My Destination is its hero.  George Brush is clearly a humorless, moralizing, meddling product of Bible-belt evangelism.  George annoys and irritates all who cross his path with his unflinching desire to put them on the right path.  He is walking, talking incompatibility.

 

It is equally clear that the play's antagonist is the Great Depression, a pandemic that has sucked the life, joy and passion out of the average Americans George encounters.

 

Unsure about the future, these victims lack hope, faith and good intentions-all the things that George possesses by the bushel.  They are numb while George is fervent.  They are weighed down by life's harsh realities while George is unpretentiously oblivious to them.  They struggle and go nowhere while George wants for nothing and is always on the move.

 

Wilder makes it easy to like our unlikely hero by toning down his religious fervor.  George is an avid Baptist but with significant leanings toward Gandhi.  He writes Biblical texts on the blotters of hotel lobbies, but is only heard reciting Shakespeare.  We learn that George goes into every church he passes in his travels to sing psalms, but we only witness him crooning college fight songs.  Consequently, George is more self-assured moral compass than self-righteous moralizing minstrel.

 

The playwright also makes it easy to like George.  Every scene is introduced by one or more of the characters in the play, who momentarily shed their insecurity, foul mood and brazen intolerance for our hero as they describe him and his actions with genuine affection.  The narrative that surrounds George renders him absolutely harmless.

 

Director Michael Bloom makes it easy to like George as well.  By casting New York actor Michael Halling in the role, we are given an unassuming soul whose bold, value-laden declarations are immediately compromised by a young, lanky body and pleasant demeanor.  Halling is an affable and charming George.

 

Bloom also tilts the satire-to-serious quotient of this play toward the humorous.  His CPH production emphasizes the wit that runs throughout Wilder's prose.  He has cast a wonderful ensemble of players, including Katie Barrett, Kailey Bell, Diane Dorsey, Christian Kohn, Justin Tatum and John Woodson, who make the most of those comical moments.   Barrett, in particular, is a hoot as a drunken everywoman, a near-sighted prostitute and a waitress in a middle-America Chinese restaurant.

 

Russell Parkman's set design places a revolving carousel that contains a veritable mountain of broken-down Americana and Depression-era artifacts center stage.  It is both a whimsical and functional display, with each rotation delivering a bed, a train car or a door frame that represents another place at another time in George's journey.  

 

This play, like the novel, contains plenty of ambiguity.  For instance, it ends with George -now beaten down by a world gone awry-receiving a gift from a priest; a man he has never met but whose welfare he asks about throughout the play.  George learns that the priest, who has died, had been praying for his soul.  Rejuvenated, George holds the gift, a silver spoon, high over his head in triumph as the lights fade.  Is this a satirical statement or a poignant point?  Well, yes.

 

 Heaven's My Destination is an intriguing, thought-provoking play that pits a strangely sympathetic hero against an unbeatable foe.  It makes for an interesting evening's entertainment. 

 

Heaven's My Destination continues through May 17 in The Cleveland Play House's Drury Theatre.  For tickets, which range from $42 to $64, call 216-795-7000 ext. 4 or visit www.clevelandplayhouse.com.
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