[NEohioPAL] Berko review: DON'T CALL ME FAT @ Cleveland Public Theatre
Roy Berko
royberko at yahoo.com
Mon Oct 18 20:30:53 PDT 2010
Disappointing DON'T CALL ME FAT at CPT
Roy Berko
(Member, American Theatre Critics Association)
--THE TIMES NEWSPAPERS--
Lorain County Times--Westlaker Times--Lakewood News Times--Olmsted-Fairview
Times
--cool cleveland.com-
Özen Yula is a Turkish playwright who has been in-residence in the Cleveland
area for the past nine-months under the sponsorship of the Cleveland
Foundation's Creative Fusion Program. His play, DON'T CALL ME FAT, is getting
its world premiere at Cleveland Public Theatre.
Mr. Yula is an internationally acclaimed writer. It was, therefore, with great
anticipation that his “American” play was anticipated. Unfortunately, the play
and the production, which was also directed by Yula, were disappointing.
In order to fully understand the writing style, it helps to know that
traditional Turkish writing, like that of many middle eastern and Arabic
cultures, tends to center on parables, story telling, and statements which lead
to open ended concepts with no specific conclusion being reached. It is often
melodramatic with tones of soap-opera over-exaggerated tragedy, often with a
little farcical vaudeville thrown in. DON'T CALL ME FAT is true to that form.
It is unrealistic, hard to accept as being a picture of “real” America, though
the present ballooning weight of USAmericans, reliance on reality television to
create “truth,” and our “fame for fifteen minutes” mentality, are real topics.
It's the form and format which makes the script hard to appreciate.
The story basically concerns an excessively obese John Doe, who is so heavy that
he cannot move from his bed. He lives with Jane Doe, his sarcastic and nasty
aunt and is attended to by Caregiver Tim, an African American nurse. Into his
life comes Psychiatrist Kathy Bengal, an aloof and manipulative health care
provider, TV Producer Jordan who, with Bengal's help, convinces John to have a
potentially life threatening operation in order to lose weight. The second act
is an account of the reality show which follows his operation. Well, kind of.
To reveal more would spoil the fragile plot.
The production is overly long, lacks clarity of direction, has some almost
embarrassing scenes, and contains graphics which make no sense. When the lines
describe fireworks, we see rains drops on Lake Erie. The Lady Gaga segment does
not contain any images of the flamboyant performer. Maybe this was supposed to
be part of the “come to conclusions on your own” approach.
Kevin Charnas, John Doe, is quite slight, so the fat suit he was wearing was
made ridiculous by his slender face and thin hands. Again, an attempt at
dichotomy? The acting was over-the-top. The screaming, the high pierced
yelling, the lack of clear character development, just added to the problems.
Knowing the strong acting abilities of many of the cast members makes me believe
that their performances were the result of the director's instructions.
Capsule judgement: It would have been so polite to a guest to our city to
praise the quality of the writing and production of DON'T CALL ME FAT, but to do
so would have been disingenuous.
The world premiere of DON'T CALL ME FAT runs through October 30 at Cleveland
Public Theatre. For tickets call 216-631-2727 or go on line to
www.cptonline.org.
Roy Berko's blog, which contains theatre and dance reviews from 2001 through
2010, as well as his consulting and publications information, can be found at
http://royberko.info
His reviews can also be found on www.coolcleveland.com and NeOHIOpal (to
subscribe visit http://mailman.listserve.com/listmanager/listinfo/neohiopal.)
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