[NEohioPAL] Berko review: IN ARABIA WE'D ALL BE KINGS @CWRU/CPH MFA ACTING PROGRAM

[Roy Berko]

*IN ARABIA WE’D ALL BE KINGS inaugurates Lab Theatre in Allen Complex*



Roy Berko

(Member, American Theatre Critics Association)



It’s been an amazing year for the Cleveland Play House.  On Fall of 2011
they moved into their new Allen Theatre home, a beautiful and functional
facility in the Playhousesquare complex.  Last month they produced their
first-ever theatre in the round production in their new Second Stage
performance space.  And, now, the Helen Rosenfeld Lewis Bialosky Lab
Theatre is open for productions.



The Lab Theatre is a flexible black box.  For IN ARABIA WE’D ALL BE KINGS,
performed by the Case Western Reserve University Cleveland Play House MFA
Acting Program, the space was set in a runway configuration.  In this type
of staging, the audience sits in parallel sections opposite each other,
with the action taking place on a rectangular space between the seated
groups of viewers.  Think—the traditional high school football stadium—in
minature.



The format worked well for the in-your-face writing of Stephen Adly Guirgis.
The Irish-American/Egyptian Guirgis, who was nominated for a Tony Award for
his THE MOTHERF* *KER WITH THE HAT, is one of America’s new breed of
playwrights.   IN ARABIA WE’D ALL BE KINGS, like much of Guirgis’s writing,
is gritty, free form, and uses the language of the streets.  There is no
sugar coating, no happy endings, no political correctness, just
no-holds-barred realism.



The play is set in a Manhattan bar.  It’s the kind of dive that most
educated, suburban people, would walk out of as soon as they walked in.  The
place is sleazy, it’s inhabited by the “sociological sub-strata” which
Guirgis seems to know so well.  Among others, there is a recently released
from jail thug, a prostitute, a junkie, and, a drunk whose entire life is
spent sitting on his corner-of-the world bar stool.



The play is about a group of dysfunctional people who have formed their own
community with their fellow bar inhabitants.  These are people who live by
their wits, often perpetuating violence and often are on the receiving end
of it.  These are the people who used to populate New York’s Hell’s Kitchen
until the city cleaned up its act and closed their homes-away-from home.  These
off-beats who have nothing more to do than dream far-fetched dreams, living
in the constant hope that things will work out for the better, and escape
from reality through drugs, sex, liquor and talking, were left without
their culture and way of life when the bars and flop houses were shuttered.



Guirgis’s dialogue is filled with language that might easily offend…racial
and ethnic slurs, swearing, gutter slang.  They say what pops into their
often-confused minds.  These are feeling, not thinking people.



On the surface, theatre-goers, who tend to be the type who have probably
never come in direct contact with this urban underclass, might be repulsed
by the motley group.  Yet, as written about by Guirgis, there is audience
understanding, compassion, a feeling of being sorry for and wanting to
reach out to these misguided folks.



The playwright is an actor turned writer, and, as such, he gives his
thespians the material to work with.  He writes complete characters whose
motivations are transparent.  He sets forth language that is natural and
real.  The motivations that push the characters forward and the story are
clear.  He writes isolated scenes rather than the usual flowing script
which has transitions from one segment to another.  He doesn’t waste
words…the viewer can fill in the blanks.  Often he motivates stunned
silence, at times he forces laughter, often out of embarrassment rather
than a joke or a funny instance.  This is heady stuff.



Ron Wilson’s direction is spot on.  The action whips along, the
characterizations are clear, and the staging creative.  He is aided by a
group of first year MFA students who show potential for making this a very
special class.



Everyone in the cast is strong.  Especially effective were Stephen Spencer
as Skank, a spaced-out druggie, whose ability to live in a fantasy world is
clearly etched.  Spencer is Skank, Skank is Spencer!  Christa Hinckley is
appropriately pathetic as the needy, airheaded Christie, who will do
anything, including prostituting herself, for drugs.  Therese Anderberg
(Demaris) has a wonderful touch with exaggerated comedy.



Tiffany Scribner’s scuzzy realistic bar and street corner sets visually
take us where we need to be.



*CAPSULE JUDGMENT:  IN ARABIA WE’D ALL BE KINGS gets an impressive
production and is a perfect vehicle to open CPH’s new Lab Theatre.  Due to
its language and subject matter, it’s not a play for everyone, but those
interested in having an up-front emotionally involving theatrical theatre
experience, should definitely see this production. *



IN ARABIA WE’D ALL BE KINGS runs through February 11 at the Helen Rosenfeld
Lewis Bialosky Lab Theatre in CPH’s Allen Theatre.  For tickets call
216-241-6000 or go to www.clevelandplayhouse.com.
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