[NEohioPAL] Review of "The Museum Play" at Convergence-Continuum

[Bob Abelman]

'The Museum Play' exhibits a few missing links

 

Bob Abelman

 

News-Herald, Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times,

The Morning Journal, Geauga Times Courier

Member, American Theatre Critics Association 

 

This review will appear in the News-Herald 6/3/11

 

Convergence-Continuum has carved out an interesting niche for itself by embracing funky plays whose storylines are not easily summarized.  Playwright Jordan Harrison's handiwork, The Museum Play, fits the bill.  

 

Unlike his equally bizarre Act a Lady and Finn in the Underworld, which have been performed in the recent past by the Con-Con crew, this work fails to impress.

 

The Museum Play takes place in a natural history museum-a site that is plenty disturbing on its own accord, with its cavernous vaulted corridors and rooms layered with dead things frozen in action poses. 

 

Harrison accentuates what is implicitly surreal about this setting by creating a world where the exhibits are inexplicably escaping. They do so under the watch of an anarchist security guard (Lauren B. Smith) who, as a baby, was abandoned at the museum and whose caregiver (Clyde Simon) perished under unusual circumstances.  

 

The playwright adds a touch of the sinister by staffing the museum with a macabre curator (Sarah Kunchik) intent on replacing each fugitive still-life with something that is still living.

 

Harrison dabbles in social commentary as well, by featuring two young men (Zac Hudak and Stuart Hoffman) who are going through the motions of a meaningful and satisfying relationship, but fail to achieve it because of the pressures of work and the persistence of traditional mores (Jessica A. Fleming).

 

Using these characters as a springboard, the playwright suggests that we live in a curated culture that tends to hide some things while selectively showcasing others.  We recklessly rewrite natural and personal histories-capturing for prosperity what we want rather than what we remember-without anyone being the wiser.   

 

This intriguing central theme is best depicted in a scene where the two men, Jame and Vin, are captured by the curator and turned into an animatronic display at the museum, where their cuddling is replicated without context.  At home, their artifacts are placed in a memorial exhibit that similarly misrepresents their lives. 

 

This is really good stuff.  It would make a great play if all the pieces and parts merged to form a comprehensive, comprehendible whole.  They do not. 

 

This play creates a theatrical habitat where the surreal, the sinister and the social commentary are expected to coexist, but their relationship is anything but symbiotic.  One marvels at their display, thanks to some fine performances by a talented cast, but each distinctive ingredient cancels the others out.  Despite some gorgeous, vivid dialogue, the play's narrative is the equivalent of an unguided tour that meanders from one exhibit to the next.  After a while disorientation sets in, then disinterest.

 

Director Cory Molner's vision is hindered by Con-Con's truncated performance space.  The theater's in-your-lap intimacy allows for the actors to hauntingly stare back at the audience the way a museum's community of taxidermy seems to stare back at its visitors. However, the limited space and the simplicity of Colleen Albrecht's lighting design and Jim Smith's set design work against the script's references to cabinets, habitats and hallways.  

 

The Museum Play is an intriguing excursion, but the missing links on exhibit keep it from being an effective piece of storytelling.    

 

The Museum Play continues through June 4 at Convergence-Continuum's Liminis Theatre in historic Tremont.  For tickets, which range from $10 to $15, call 216-687-0074 or visit www.convergence-continuum.org.
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