[NEohioPAL] Review of "Bus Stop" at Actors' Summit

[Bob Abelman]

Actors' Summit captures the Inge-enuity of 'Bus Stop'

 

Bob Abelman

Cleveland Jewish News

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

This review will appear in the Cleveland Jewish News on 3/7/14

 

During the 1950s, William Inge created a niche for himself by writing a series of well-crafted plays - "Come Back, Little Sheba," "Picnic," and "Bus Stop" - that give voice to average Americans by dramatizing their world of the ordinary.  These plays are about small people, in small places, with small problems.  But their problems become intriguing upon close examination and are intensified when placed in a self-contained arena of confrontation.   

 

"Bus Stop" is currently under close examination by Actors' Summit in downtown Akron. 

 

In "Bus Stop," a blizzard strands several bus passengers in a small-town roadside diner about 30 miles west of Kansas City, Missouri.  They are Cherie (Llewie Nunez), a pretty, promiscuous southern lounge singer; Bo (Dean Coutris), a young cowboy who is smitten with Cherie's sexuality and is taking her to his Montana ranch against her will; Virgil (Bill Hoffman), Bo's senior ranch-hand and confidant; and Dr. Gerald Lyman (Doug Hendel), a thrice-divorced, unemployable academician with a taste for whisky, young girls and Shakespeare. 

 

These people are held captive by Mother Nature but, mostly, by human nature, and are anxious to get on with their done-nothing, go-nowhere lives.

 

Inge's plays boil down to universal themes and, in the case of "Bus Stop," that theme is loneliness in its many mutations.  During his brief stay at the diner, the lecherous and drunken Dr. Lyman seeks solace in Elma (Rebecca Ribley), a starry-eyed teenage waitress.  Grace (Elizabeth Lawson), the well-worn owner of the diner, beds bus driver Carl (Jim Fippin) in lieu of her vanished husband.  Bo and Cherie dull their respective pain and isolation by engaging in their crazy courtship while Virgil stands ever vigil at the cowboy's side and the local lawman (Alex Nine) watches for signs of trouble. 

 

Humorous at times and poignant to the bones at others, "Bus Stop" is also layered with an omnipresent sense of melancholy.  Hope is within the reach of each of these characters, but it is as fleeting as Grace and Carl's coupling, as tainted as Dr. Lyman's rye-bated breath, and as superficial as Bo and Cherie's relationship. 

 

This Actors' Summit production, under Ric Goodwin's delicate direction, is all that a production of "Bus Stop" should be.  

 

Rich and textured portrayals are turned in by a cast of uniformly stellar performers as they listen intently to each other's words, process their meaning in stunning silence, and respond in earnest.  They mine all the meaning the playwright has put into this story, unveil all the raw emotion that plays out in the storytelling, and manage to do so with incredible charm and tenderness.  And the melancholy is palatable.

 

All the performances are superb, but Nunez is breathtaking as Cherie.  She is particularly so when allowing fleeting glimpses of the damaged goods that reside underneath her flirtatious smile.  Her body language simultaneously invites and repels affection, which Coutris' Bo responds to with a perfect blending of desire and confusion.

 

Also noteworthy is the remarkable understatement with which Hendel reveals Dr. Lyman's self-loathing, which serves as a painful but perfect counterpoint to the blind admiration generated by Ribley's innocent Elma.

 

This is Inge done well, performed on a realistic and appropriately appointed set built and designed under Kevin Rutan's supervision.  This production is as entertaining as it is moving, which makes for a wonderful and valuable evening of theater.

 

What:              "Bus Stop"

Where:            Actors' Summit, Greystone Hall in downtown Akron 

When:             Through Sunday, March 9

Tickets:           $10 - $33, call 330-374-7568 or visit www.actorssummit.org

  
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