[NEohioPAL] Review of "Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune" at Blank Canvas Theatre

[Bob Abelman]

'Frankie and Johnny' is too much of a blank slate at Blank Canvas Theatre

 

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 9/6/13

 

 

Award-winning playwright Terrence McNally is one of those rare writers who is equally comfortable creating dramatic character studies and musical theater.  In his 1995 play "Master Class," he beautifully combines the two by telling the story of opera diva Maria Callas as she holds a master class in voice that is interspersed with incidental but thematic music by Verdi, Puccini, and Bellini.

 

This clever formula was first tried in McNally's 1987 play "Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune," which is currently on stage at Blank Canvas Theatre.

 

"Frankie and Johnny" is an unfiltered portrait of the ordinary lives of two average, middle-aged people.   Frankie is an uneducated waitress who has given up on her dreams and Johnny, who lives to dream, is the new short-order cook at the same greasy-spoon restaurant.  They find themselves in bed and, in the real-time of this two-hour play, try to find an emotional and intellectual connection.

 

Rhythmic moans, cadenced pillow-talk, flatulence and laughter is the music that starts this play, which gives way to the sounds of Debussy, Wagner and others heard in the background on the radio.  Frankie and Johnny are damaged - no, broken and incomplete - souls desperately hoping to fill each others' voids with the help of the moonlight and the music.  

 

Kimberly Escut and Doug Kusak are wonderful in these roles. 

 

Like Scottie dog magnets, Escut and Kusak pull each other near and push each other away, as if simultaneously attracted to and repulsed by the other's presence.  The actors do a phenomenal job of finding those moments in the script when their characters are particularly repellent and when they are desirable, and are at their comedic best when the script requires them to be at opposite extremes.

 

Under Marc Moritz's excellent direction, these humorous moments - and the poignant ones as well - happen organically and are never forced or foreshadowed.

 

Not a lot happens in this play and there is not much room for it in the unadorned convenience apartment built on the intimate Blank Canvas floor space that serves as its stage.

 

What does occur, and what serves as the focus of our attention, is the emotional ebb and flow between Frankie and Johnny.  This is why the music - which facilitates the dynamic tension between the characters and serves as a subtle soundtrack to the storytelling - is so instrumental.       

 

Sadly, the music is underutilized in this production.  

 

Whether a directorial decision or technological glitch (it is easier to lean toward glitch since every light cue is late), the musical interludes are too difficult to hear to distinguish one from the other.  Without this core narrative device, the naked banter between Frankie and Johnny is insufficient to sustain the play and the audience's attention to it.  

 

"Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune" is an intriguing work and Escut and Kusak work hard to pull it off.  But the devil is in the details.

"Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune" runs through September 7 at the Blank Canvas Theatre (at 78th Street Studios) in Cleveland.  For general admission tickets, which are $15, visit www.blankcanvastheatre.com.
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