[NEohioPAL] Review of "Handle With Care" by Actors' Summit

[Bob Abelman]

'Handle With Care' comes COD 

 

Bob Abelman

Cleveland Jewish News

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

This review will appear in the Cleveland Jewish News on 4/4/14

 

 

At the start of Jason Odell Williams' new romantic comedy "Handle With Care," currently on stage at Actors' Summit in Akron, we find its characters stuck in a cheap motel room in a tiny rural Virginia community during a Christmas Eve snow storm.  

 

Ayelet is a young Israeli woman on a road trip with her grandmother, Edna, who died earlier that morning and whose body has just been lost by the DHX shipping company in route to the airport.  Joining Ayelet in the room is Terrence, the dismayed deliveryman who lost the body, and his Jewish friend Josh, who has been brought in to help communicate with Ayelet even though his Hebrew does not extend beyond the memorized haftorah portion of his bar mitzvah.

 

Killing time and searching for common ground, they turn on the TV and find only the holiday standard "It's a Wonderful Life."   

 

Subtlety is not this playwright's strong suit, for this small, seemingly inconsequential contrivance serves to plow the path for the play's big payoff:  a George Bailey-esque Christmas miracle.  By the end of the play, our characters have found what has been lost, including faith in a divine plan, joy in life's simple pleasures and, of course, the dead grandmother.  

 

Originality is not his strength either, for too many aspects of "It's a Wonderful Life" permeate the play's substance and structure.  If homage was the intention, impudence is the result.  

 

Frank Capra- inspired corniness dominates the writing.  Set in the year 2008, "Handle With Care" often reads as if written in 1946.  

 

And the play is similarly predictable, with upcoming plot points being seen a mile away because of the blatant hints dropped by the characters.  It is obvious from the get-go that Ayelet, who we are told is newly single and has sworn off men, will connect with Josh, who we are told is a recent widower who has isolated himself from the world.

 

Even our guide on this journey - the deceivingly dimwitted Terrence - is modeled after the film's angel, Clarence, from his stumbling wisdom to his private conversations with the heavens.  The scene where he earns his wings must have been deleted in a final rewrite.

 

While "It's a Wonderful Life" manipulated time by sandwiching a world without George Bailey between a world with him, the action in "Handle With Care" flips back and forth between December 24 and the day before, when Ayelet and her grandmother arrive at the motel.  The result is less effective, for this tends to disrupt and then diffuse many of the dramatic and comedic moments that pepper this play.

 

But just as the film showcased the brilliant performances of Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed, this production puts on display the exceptional work created by Keith E. Stevens as Josh and Natalie Sander Kern as Ayelet.  

 

Both Stevens and Kern rise above the material by bringing charisma and chemistry to this production.  They turn tepid and often banal writing into genuinely moving moments, charm their way through the play's more contrived instances, and even out the occasionally ungainly exchanges with Marci Paolucci as Edna and Arthur Chu as Terrence. 

 

Director Constance Thackaberry keeps everything moving at a brisk pace, which is conducive to the comedy and distracts us from the inanity.  With the assistance of Hebrew coach Oudi Singer, volumes of untranslated dialogue and broken English spoken by Ayelet are given authenticity. 

 

Though well delivered, "Handle With Care" comes COD by asking its audience to forgive the playwright's creative trespasses and accept fine storytelling in lieu of a fine story.  For those willing to do so, a real George Bailey-esque Christmas miracle has occurred.  

 

WHAT:            "Handle With Care"

WHERE:        Actors' Summit, Greystone Hall in downtown Akron 

WHEN:           Through Sunday, April 13

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

  
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