[NEohioPAL] Review of Lakeland Civic Theatre's "November"

[Bob Abelman]

Lakeland's 'November' entertains while it agitates

 

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 10/7/11

 

Director Martin Friedman's artistic mission, it seems, is to agitate his Civic Theatre audiences as well as entertain them.

 

Evidence can be found in his selection of last season's marvelous musical Assassins.  With songs by Stephen Sondheim-the master of enigmatic, emotion-inducing music and lyrics-Assassins was a provocative piece of storytelling that suggested that political assassinations may well be the desperate acts of broken people seeking happiness rather than random acts of madness.  

 

Further proof of Friedman's folly is a production of David Mamet's November, currently on the Lakeland Community College stage.   

 

This comedy invades the sanctity of the Oval Office (beautifully recreated by Keith Nagy) by populating it with genuinely unlikeable people and lacing its rarified air with all forms of profanity.  November features a corrupt and universally disliked lame duck President, his loyal-to-a-fault lesbian speechwriter, and an enabling appendage in the form of his trusted legal advisor.   

 

Despite poll numbers "as low as Gandhi's cholesterol," the President wishes to seek reelection at all costs, as long as the costs are absorbed by others and in spite of his ignorance of national and world affairs.  This Commander in Chief is racist, sexist and so woefully unaware that he believes making it rain is an executive privilege.  

 

In true Mamet fashion, November employs obscenities as a second language and showcases desperate, self-destructive louts engaging in bad behavior and stewing in their own juices.  Mamet last ventured into the political arena in 1997, as co-author of the screenplay for Wag the Dog, about a fictional president who stages a fake war to distract from a sex scandal.  November is a comedy, however, and contains more biting, brilliant one-liners and laughs at others' expense than a Norman Lear sitcom.

 

As of opening night, this production of November is not fully fermented.  That is, it is funny, but not to its potential, and it is prickly, but not quite agitating enough.  And, inspired by the absurdity of the presidential pardoning of a turkey every Thanksgiving (which this play also employs as fodder), this production has yet to achieve the desired level of ludicrousness.

 

Actor Robert Hawkes is at his best with bile for dialogue, and is both proficient at and poetic when dropping f-bombs.  As President Charles Smith, Hawkes is a treat as he chomps at and spits out Mamet's meaty words and salty sayings.  Still, he has yet to fully relax into the role and, like Nathan Lane in the 2008 Broadway production of this show, find the diverse rhythms in the comedy.  It will most certainly come, but right now he is more blusterous than boisterous. 

 

Andrew Narten, as sardonic and self-possessed attorney Archer Brown, nicely complements but allows himself to be overshadowed by Hawkes' performance.   Both Narten and Anne McEvoy as speechwriter Clarice Bernstein are delightful as they allow all the preposterousness of this play to fly by overhead without flinching.

 

If there is any flinching to be done, it is to be done by the audience.  The American presidency has been used for target practice of late, with character assassination becoming a popular pastime for pundits and citizens generally dissatisfied with their political leaders.  November offers us a chilling, worst case scenario as we head into a new election year.  

 

The production also boasts fine, albeit thin performances by Abigail Grace Allwein as the corporate representative for the Turkey industry, and Robert McCoy as a Native American with claims on Nantucket. 

 

The playbill offers a quote from David Mamet that states: "When you come into the theater, you have to be willing to say 'We're all here to undergo a communion, to find out what the hell is going on in the world'."   November is more like a Baptism and the water is cold.

 

November runs through October 16 at Lakeland Civic Theatre, 7700 Clocktower Drive, Kirtland.  For tickets, which are $7 to $15, call 440-428-5913.  

 
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