[NEohioPAL] Review of "Legacy of Light" at the Cleveland Play House

[Bob Abelman]

CPH's 'Legacy of Light' is more collision than fusion

 

Bob Abelman

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

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

This review will appear in the News-Herald 4/22/11

 

Fusion is the combining of two or more distinct entities, such as atomic nuclei, which releases or absorbs large quantities of energy and creates a mass greater than the original entitles.

 

Fusionfest-Cleveland's multidisciplinary performing arts festival-is a high energy merging of the muses that has, over the course of its six years, become a cultural experience greater than the sum of its parts.  This year's celebration began April 13 and runs through April 23.

 

Kicking off the festivities is the Cleveland Play House production of Legacy of Light, a new play by Karen Zacarias that couldn't be more true to the theme of this festival yet less successful at achieving it. 

 

Legacy of Light is a witty, intelligent tale that jumps back and forth between the parallel lives of two brilliant women, one living in 18th century France and the other living in contemporary America.  Émilie du Châtelet and Olivia are both physicists on the brink of great discoveries, who yearn to be mothers despite being in their 40s.  Both are the product of their time and the victim of their biology, but have lofty aspirations.  

 

The play cleverly fuses hard science with sinuous fiction, comedy with drama, and the present with the past.  It mixes the laws of physics with the labors of love, conjoins the birth of a planet with the birth of a baby, and juxtaposes feminism with chauvinism.  In short, Legacy of Light is the storytelling equivalent of Chaos Theory, where what seems random has an underlying order.  

 

On paper, this play is magnificent.

 

Unfortunately, what occurs on stage is more fission than fusion and more chaos than order.  A significant disconnect between the playwright and director Bart DeLorenzo is evident, where the script's playfulness is accentuated to the point of farce.  What should be clever comes across as contrived and what should be fluid is forced.  

 

The actors are called upon to create larger than life personas, speak artificially loud and succinct, and approach their dialogue as if every humorous moment comes with a rimshot.  This is evident throughout the play but is particularly apparent in the 18th century scenes.

 

As such, Cerris Morgan-Moyer's Émilie, a beautiful deep-thinker, fails to display the intelligence her lover, Voltaire, finds most attractive about her.  In fact, her loud and succinct deliver makes her seem vapid.  Lenny Von Dohlen's Voltaire is a delightful creation but is, nonetheless, a broad caricature.  This undermines the heart built into his verbiage, so he has to work doubly hard to express it.  Similarly, Clancy O'Connor's Jean-Francois Saint-Lambert, another of Émilie's lovers, is a glossy version of what the playwright intended.  

 

Faring better but similarly stilted is Michelle Duffy as Olivia, Paul Michael Valley as both Émilie's husband Monsieur du Châtelet and Olivia's husband Peter, and Amelia Pedlow as both Millie, the surrogate mother of Peter and Olivia's baby, and Pauline, Émilie's oldest daughter.

 

Although all the actors have scattered moments of clarity, where the vestiges of a real person peek through the stagey performance mode created for this production, Pedlow's moments are the most enduring and endearing.

 

Takeshi Kata's scenic design consists of realistic furniture set pieces that fly in and out of a surreal environment complete with colorful, dreamscape framing and a looming, full-scale tree of knowledge at center stage.  This is all quite beautiful and facilitates the storytelling, as does David Kay Mickelsen's gorgeous, era-appropriate costuming.

 

Unfortunately, DeLorenzo's theatrical shenanigans overemphasize dramatic moments, knock you over the head with important plot points, and make poor use of the set.  The most obvious among them is the barrage of apples that fall from the heavens at a moment of epiphany late in the play.  So littered is the stage that the actors' visible fear of stepping on fake fruit becomes more salient than what the playwright has to offer.  

 

Another instance of symbolism gone wild occurred early in Act I during the opening night performance, when Von Dohlen, as Voltaire, took too big a bite of an apple and nearly choked himself into unconsciousness.  Fortunately, he was able to exit the stage to dislodge the obstruction.  In keeping with the excesses of this production, he probably should have done so in full view and with dramatic flair.

 

On the page, Legacy of Light is a fusion of ideas and images.  On the stage, in this production, it's more of a collision.    

 

Legacy of Light continues through May 1 in The Cleveland Play House's Drury Theatre.  For tickets, which range from $46 to $66, call 216-795-7000 or visit www.clevelandplayhouse.com.
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