[NEohioPAL] Review of "The Velocity of Autumn" at Beck Center for the Arts

[Bob Abelman]

'Velocity of Autumn' a tender but tortuous coming-of-old age tale

 

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 3/30/12

 

Listen carefully.  

 

That's the sound of time passing us by, of life being lived and then reverting to a distant memory.  There goes childhood, adolescence, parenthood and middle age in the blink of an eye, as a whisper in the wind.  Cornerstones are turned. Milestones are reached.  Kidney stones are passed. 

 

This, in a nutshell, is local playwright Eric Coble's "The Velocity of Autumn"-an intriguing one-act, two-person coming-of-old age play that is enjoying its regional premiere at the Beck Center for the Arts but is not always so enjoyable.  

 

"The Velocity of Autumn" flash-freezes the breakneck forward momentum of time and offers us a moment in the life of septuagenarian Alexandra.  The playwright has chosen a pivotal moment-a crisis moment-when Alexandra and her estranged, middle-aged son, Chris, are dramatically reunited.

 

 Despite her other children's attempts to remove her from a much beloved Brooklyn brownstone apartment and into a nursing home, Alexandra is determined to spend her remaining years exactly where she is, no matter the consequence.  After she barricades herself in the apartment and threatens to blow up the place if not left alone, the runaway, ne're-do-well Chris is recruited as a last resort to talk some sense into the old woman.  

 

Both mother and son are at key junctures in their lives and in desperate need of help for safe crossing.  She has lived her life to the fullest but is now facing the indignities of old age that make living almost unbearable.  He is still looking for a full life, a fulfilling life, but its elusiveness makes living almost intolerable.  Both of them are alone on their journeys and in their misery, and neither one seems capable of offering the other a gentle act of kindness. 

 

This is a tender, beautifully written play, all the while offering clever lines that are caustic when warranted and humorous when needed most.  The conflicts that exist between mother and child ebb and flow with cascading rhythms while still maintaining their poignancy.    

 

Oddly, other elements in this play are more difficult to listen to.  "The Velocity of Autumn" is laden with Alexandra's laments about the dementia, arthritis, fading appetites, failing knees and faltering senses that have come to define her.  These repeated reminders of the morbidity of mortality create an awkward incompatibility and imbalance with the play's charm and bite, and not the desired layer of complexity it was going for. 

 

This incompatibility is further accentuated by director Eric Schmiedl's overtly realistic approach to the material, which skews the production's palate toward "On Golden Pond" when a darker or perhaps edgier treatment might have been called for.  Cleveland Public Theater's wonderful production of Coble's "My Barking Dog" comes to mind.  

 

Todd Kripinsky's incredible set design seems to go in that direction.  He creates the impression that this play is a mere moment in time by deconstructing furniture pieces and repositioning them as if they were windswept by the sheer velocity of life and then frozen.  Not much else about the production follows suite.

 

"The Velocity of Autumn's" actors, Dorothy Silver and David Hansen, give wonderful, nuanced performances.   Silver is particularly brilliant toward the play's end when Alexandra's bravado-a trait bestowed on all the featured females in Coble's three "Alexandra Plays"-gives way to vulnerability.  Still, on opening night both performers seem to struggle to find a consistent voice for their characters, which says more about the material than the performers themselves.  

 

In fact, the material seems to quit on them at the end.   Ninety minutes of butting heads abruptly turns into an amiable ending that is more crowd pleasing than fitting closure for the fearless namesake of the Alexandra trilogy. 

 

"The Velocity of Autumn" runs through April 29 at the Beck Center for the Arts in Lakewood.  For tickets, which range from $10-$28, call 216-521-2540 x10 or visit www.beckcenter.org.
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