[NEohioPAL] Review of Dobama's "A Steady Rain"

[Bob Abelman]

Heads, you win with Dobama's 'A Steady Rain'

 

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 3/4/11

 

 

Heads or tails. 

 

Life is full of chance outcomes. Like the flip of a coin, much of what happens in the course of a lifetime is the result of a random act, a happenstance.  Each coin toss is an independent event, and chances are even that each outcome can be a "heads, you win" or a "tails, you lose."  Life can be like that.

 

Still, human behavior is more complicated than a coin toss.  Over time we develop routines in what we do.  We establish patterns in how we act.  We tip the odds on whether life will turn up heads or tails.  

 

In Keith Huff's two-character drama A Steady Rain, currently playing at Dobama Theatre, Denny and Joey are two sides of the same coin.  They come from the same lower-middle class Chicago neighborhood.  They have been best friends since kindergarten. They are long-time partners on the police force, where they both have been repeatedly passed over for promotion.

 

Yet, they couldn't be more different.

 

Denny (an explosive, dynamic Jeremy Kendall) is a "tails, you lose" kinda guy.  He is a dedicated friend and family man who will do anything for those he loves, including skimming cash from hookers and breaking the law without hesitation.  He is as volatile, bullying and racist as he is devoted, which accounts for his professional failures.  Denny recognizes his deficiencies and embraces them, for they have grown comfortable and now define him.  

 

Joey (a sensitive, sympathetic Scott Plate) is a brooding, vulnerable and lonely recovering alcoholic.  He has grown accustomed to being dominated, protected and held back by his partner and turns a blind eye to Denny's shortcomings as a friend, husband and father.  He is, however, working diligently at making each flip of the coin in his own life come up "heads" and changing his fate.  

 

A Steady Rain actually unfolds like a tossed coin.  It offers a series of back and forth monologues that give Denny and Joey turns at putting their respective spin on all that has transpired in their lives.  Their relationship is also in a constant state of flux, flipping from loyalty to betrayal and from brotherhood to abuse as the play progresses. 

 

Director Joel Hammer keeps the whirling currency that is this play airborne and churning at a steady and purposeful pace, allowing it to eventually land, teeter and reveal its outcome in dramatic fashion.  

 

The action takes place on a lone set that resembles a steep concrete easement intended to convey the overflow of water from the steady rain alluded to in the play's title and overheard before and after each act.  The set, designed by Laura Carlson Tarantowski, is painted to create the illusion of water streaming down toward the audience.  The actors are provided two chairs and an interrogation-room table on which to debrief the audience, allowing raw emotions to surge from the stage and into our laps along with the flood waters.

 

There is limited on-stage action in this play-frantic pacing, mostly-but the playwright's use of language more than makes up for this.  Denny and Joey speak as if they stepped out of a film noire detective film, spewing verbiage so vivid and descriptive that an entire ensemble of unseen secondary characters is conjured and given form through words alone.  Monologues venture into the melodramatic upon occasion, but the interjection of profanity restores the ph balance.

 

The film noire flavor of the script is nicely embellished by Marcus Dan's single-source lighting, which creates just the right mood at just the right times.  

 

A Steady Rain is a well written, emotionally charged play that is well staged and wonderfully performed by the folks at Dobama.  This is a fantastic piece of theater.  Obviously, choosing the right play and the right creative team is more than just a flip of a coin.   

  

A Steady Rain continues through March 20 at the Dobama Theatre, 2340 Lee Road, Cleveland Heights.  For tickets, which range from $10 to $25, call 216-932-3396 or visit www.dobama.org.

 
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