[NEohioPAL] Review of "The Lyons" at Dobama Theatre

[Bob Abelman]

Eccentric 'The Lyons' fills Dobama Theatre with toxic comedy

 

Bob Abelman

News-Herald, Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times, Geauga Times Courier

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

This review will appear in the News-Herald on 4/26/13

 

 

Dobama Theatre's final show of the season serves up epic domestic dysfunction as the evening's entertainment, with terminal cancer as its punch-line and some of the most unlikable characters to ever populate a stage to deliver it.  Surprisingly, "The Lyons" is hilarious.

 

Ben Lyons - husband to Rita and father to two adult children, Curtis and Lisa -- is riddled with cancer and dying in a hospital bed.  Dying is the least of his problems, for he is being visited by his family.  

 

This is a family void of affection or connection, and so engrossed in their personal pain - Rita has lost herself in a loveless marriage; Curtis is a lonely, self-deceiving homosexual; and Lisa is a brittle alcoholic - that they can neither recognize the misery in themselves nor resist contributing to the misery of others.  When Ben - boisterous, belligerent, and fed up with his wife's belittling and his kids' bickering - yells "I'm dying" to anyone who will listen, Rita responds with "I know, Dear.  Try to be positive." 

 

Think "Seinfeld" with everyone a Costanza.  

 

What makes this pathologically pathetic family so funny is that there is not a bit of bad intention in their complete lack of consideration. None of them takes any pleasure in sucking the pleasure from others or the air from the room; it just comes naturally.  

 

Playwright Nicky Silver ("Pterodactyls," "Raised in Captivity") is the master of clandestine causticity and recognizes that every member of the audience has a relative or two like one of the Lyons.  His genius is gathering them together in one room and calling them a family.  

 

Director Nathan Motta's genius is most evident in his casting choices (and in the lively pace of this production), for he has found performers capable of delivering all this dark, corrosive comedy without flinching at the toxic fumes.   

 

As Ben, Dudley Swetland's veteran physicality and comic timing are put to grand use.  He is animated and interesting though bed-ridden (in Laura Carlson's wonderfully antiseptic hospital room set) and so funny in his depiction of a graceless, selfish and obviously disappointed patriarch that there is not an ounce of sympathy for his character's passing. Not from his wife, not from his kids, and not from the audience.  

 

Jeanne Task is wonderful as Rita.  The casualness with which she delivers her barbs allows them to travel below the radar and then land hard.  Most are catapulted from behind the interior design magazine she is reading, so you can't even see them coming.  It is in the second act, when Rita comes out from behind the magazine and Task is given dialogue to deliver rather than respond to, that her performance seems to falter a bit and becomes less interesting.      

 

Anjanette Hall is a pleasure to watch all the time, but particularly when Lisa's façade fades under attack and she regresses to the vulnerable little girl her parents and brother still see her as being.  These moments could easily lapse into melodrama or slapstick if not for the playwright's very clever writing and Hall's handling of it.

 

Christopher M. Bohan's Curtis is so thoroughly uncomfortable in his own skin that he seems to be channeling the young George McFly from the film "Back to the Future"- all flailing limbs, awkward imbalance, and stammering speech - when on the defensive.  It works beautifully, as does the false bravado on display when he tries to connect with a stranger (nicely played by Sean Grandillo) and, later in the play, with a nurse (a tender portrayal by Joyce M. Meadows).

 

One of the two disappointing parts of "The Lyons" is its happy ending - well, "happy" relative to these neurotic characters' monumental misery - which comes across as a bit pandering.  That anyone is even left standing by the end of the play should be considered happy enough.   

 

Also disappointing is the fact that "The Lyons" ends at all.

 

"The Lyons" runs through May 19 at 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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