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

[Bob Abelman]

Dobama's 'The Aliens' offers alluring insight into outsiders

Bob Abelman

Cleveland Jewish News

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

This review will appear in the Cleveland Jewish News  on 2/14/14

 

 

Our cities are laden with vagrants - the alienated, the disenfranchised, and the estranged who have fallen between the cracks, below the radar, and out of sight.  And by out of sight I mean we avoid their glances, dodge their overtures for loose change, and dismiss their efforts to establish some semblance of human contact.   Out of sight; out of mind.

 

Playwright Annie Baker attempts to correct this social injustice in her play "The Aliens," on stage at Dobama Theatre in Cleveland Heights.

 

And by play I mean hanging out with these near-invisible denizens of doorways and dark street corners so we can get to know them a little bit better.  Baker's designated drifters are KJ and Jasper, two 30-something slackers who have taken up residency in the back alley of a Vermont coffee shop.  We are afforded the opportunity to listen to their inane rants, pick up pieces of their broken back story, and witness the beauty they find in simple pleasures and each others' modest company.

 

Call it Theatre of the Mundane, for nothing happens when the lights first come up, followed by nothing much happening throughout the two hour production.

 

The dialogue consists of drug-addled ramblings, terse reflections on the human condition that trail off into unfinished thoughts, elongated sighs, and slow drags on cigarettes.  

 

The dramatic arc typically found in storytelling is replaced by a series of subtle, uneventful yet intriguing moments that are buffered on both sides by pauses that stretch to epic proportions.  

 

And conflict is downsized to brief confrontations with inner-voices and personal demons.  

 

What surfaces from this deliberate and disarming display of human wreckage is insight into the people we randomly encounter with eyes wide shut and exposure to the delicate albeit discordant rhythms of their street poetry.

 

Baker provides the poetry, but empathetic director Nathan Motta and his cast of exceptionally talented actors deliver the goods.

 

Matt O'Shea, as Jasper, is a man on the verge of spontaneous human combustion.  He fumes over forces he cannot control and quakes as his obvious intelligence tries, but fails, to make sense of life's mysteries.  Proof of the burning that lays within takes the form of cigarette smoke routinely flowing from Jasper's nostrils and a head full of hair that climbs skyward, like flames desperately seeking oxygen.  Although Jasper is cynical and self-defeating, O'Shea makes him immediately likable.  The character regularly cites the works of Charles Bukowski, poet laureate of American lowlife, but it is O'Shea who provides Jasper with a poet's soul.

 

While Jasper is an explosion waiting to happen, Alexander V. Thompson's KJ is more likely to implode - collapsing under the weight of his enormous heart, the vastness of his child-like spirit, and a big man's girth supported by delicate feet that are prone to prance.  Thompson's performance is as charming as it is compelling.  And his physical resemblance to the psilocybin mushrooms he consumes, thanks to Tesia Benson's cunning costuming, does not go unnoticed.

Joseph Dunn plays Evan, a young innocent who works at the coffee shop and encounters Jasper and KJ while taking out the trash.  He is our awkward and uneasy conduit into their backstreet world and outsider existence, which allows us to eavesdrop without risk.  Dunn's Evan is marvelously uncomfortable in his own skin, which is a delightful and poignant counterpoint to how very contented Jasper and KJ are in theirs. 

 

These three performers convey an astounding realism that nicely complements that of Aaron Benson's back alley scenic design, Marcus Dana's lighting design, and Richard Ingraham's sound design.  Although not much happens on stage, it looks and sounds wonderful.    

The take-away from this tender character study, besides the master class in naturalistic performance, is a greater compassion for the aliens among us and a newfound ability to see those we easily dismiss as invisible. 

 

What:              "The Aliens"

Where:            Dobama Theatre, 2340 Lee Rd., Cleveland Heights.

When:             Through Sunday, February 23

Tickets:           $10 - 26, call 216-932-3396 or visit www.dobama.org.

 

 
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