[NEohioPAL] 6 Reviews - 6 Raves MANNING UP at Actors' Summit

[Neil Thackaberry]

Director Neil Thackaberry pulls out all the farce plugs, including knocking
down doors and overblown hysteria, to set a furious pace.


Peter Voinovich (Raymond) and Keith Stevens (Donnie), who are real-life
brothers-in-law and have recently gone through the throes of new
fatherhood, have a great time on stage.  They both develop clear
characters.  Stevens, whose mobile face often reflects the “deer caught in
the headlights look” of a timid academic, unused to operating without a
lesson plan, is excellent.  Voinovich, the bigger, more gruff of the two,
rants and raves with great buffoonery.
Roy Berko

Stevens and Voinovich perform with convincing naturalism. Watching Stevens
as Donnie hyperventilate, practice Lamaze technique and reclaim his inner
manhood provides one of the play’s funniest moments.



“Manning Up” is about growing up. Babies aren’t the only thing evolving;
the men are turning into dads.

Fran Heller


As for the actors, they are great. They are able to pull off the delicate
balance of false bravado and true feelings necessary to make the play work.
Peter Voinovich as Ray shifts from braggart to a man of sensitive feelings
while his cohort in crime, Donnie, starts out timid but is able to harness
the inner manliness within. In the end, their balance of timid and bravado
balance out in each of them.

Mark Horning


What’s sweet about this show is that it delves into the many neuroses men
might have about looming fatherhood but may never verbalize. The guys
reveal to each other the moments in their marriages that have made them
feel most like a man and least like a man. All this is in preparation for a
“man-inar” that Raymond insists they must take together to get in touch
with their inner manhood.

The anecdotes are sweet and funny and reveal the depth of these guys’ love
for both their wives, unseen offstage, and their unborn babies. As
different as Raymond’s and Donnie’s personalities are, these “bros” are
tight.

Stevens and Voinovich expertly play off their characters’ differences,
including Donnie’s squeamishness and Raymond’s somewhat graphic references
to sex and pregnancy.

“You’re like an idiot savant of manliness,” Raymond tells Donnie in one of
the play’s best lines.

Kerry Clawson


The show may be billed as a comedy, but the playwright brings some serious
topics to the stage. People leave the theater talking about more than where
they parked the car.

Director Neil Thackaberry helped his actors develop distinct characters.
The stage movement could easily become redundant with only two actors on
the stage, but Thackaberry solves that problem with many different
diversions. Voinovich is loud and boisterous as the soon-to-be father. He
finds the laughs and goes for them. Stevens is a rock solid actor. He makes
his character more fragile than Voinovich’s. But, he lets us know that
beneath that fragility he’s tough and strong.

David Ritchey
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