[NEohioPAL] Review of Dobama Theatre's "Grizzly Mama"

[Bob Abelman]

'Grizzly Mama' taps the Obama in Dobama

 

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 on 9/16/11

 

Political assassination is no laughing matter. 

 

That is, unless it is addressed by award-winning playwright George Brant and takes the form of Grizzly Mamma -a commissioned, world premiere production at Dobama Theatre.

 

Grizzly Mamma is a dark comedy that channels every liberal's deepest fantasy: squelching the rising tide that is Sarah Palin's push toward the presidency. Of course, in Brant's fertile and fermenting imagination, the floodgate of possibilities opens wide and an extreme and decidedly permanent solution is presented.  

 

Enter homicidal homemaker Deb Marshall, played with gusto, daring and fastidious comic timing by Heather Anderson Boll.  

 

Deb was born of feminist stock and is woefully aware that she has disappointed her elders by living the suburban lifestyle as housewife and mother.  Newly divorced and eager to align herself with her activist ancestors, she and her disgruntled teenage daughter Hannah move to the wilderness of Alaska and next door to a Palinesque Republican front-runner.   Deb's mission is to end the madness by offing her conservative, anti-feminist neighbor.   

 

Brant's play is very clever on so many fronts. 

 

He wisely keeps the Grizzly Mama from ever stepping on stage, knowing that impersonation or any kind of personification would make the politics and the notion of political assassination too real to be entertaining.  Reality turns dark comedy into something deeply foreboding and immediately unattractive.  

 

Instead, we are offered the presidential candidate's teenage cub, Laurel, who, in the hands of actress Erin Scerbak, is a wonderfully sympathetic and accessible ambassador for her mother's extremism.  Scerbak is disarmingly charming in this role.

 

Brant also makes Deb woefully ill-equipped for her new-found vocation and supplies her with an equally inept sidekick in the form of her teenage daughter.  Caitlin Lewins is absolutely delightful as Hannah and brings an authenticity to the dysfunctional mother/daughter dynamic.

 

By doing this, the play's comedy is circumstantial and springs from acerbic and hilarious dialogue rather than easy and politically flavored punch lines.  This play is funny because of the sheer absurdity of the situation and the people who populate it.  

 

Brant's alliance with director Laura Kepley is, perhaps, his most clever initiative.  Kepley had collaborated on Brant's Elephant's Graveyard, about the lynching of a circus elephant, among other productions.  She gets his humor and this is overtly evident in this Dobama production.  Everything about the staging keeps the comedy in the forefront while embracing Brant's quick and quirky style of storytelling, including visible and intriguing scene transitions rather than blackouts.  

 

This production comes complete with a gorgeous log cabin set by Jill Davis and effective sound and lighting design by Richard Ingraham and Marcus Dana, respectively.

 

The result is an engaging, fluid and delightfully entertaining piece of original theater.  This play certainly taps the Obama in Dobama, with its liberal leanings, but it manages to take some shots at both sides of the aisle and does so with aplomb and humor.

 

Dobama Theatre's mission is to premiere the best contemporary plays by established and emerging playwrights.  Grizzly Mamma?   Paydirt.

 

Grizzly Mamma continues through October 2 at the Dobama Theatre, 2340 Lee Road, Cleveland Heights.  For tickets, which range from $10 to $26, call 216-932-3396 or visit www.dobama.org.
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