[NEohioPAL] Review of "Kin" at Dobama Theatre

[Bob Abelman]

Clever 'Kin' explores the ties that bind 

 

Bob Abelman

Cleveland Jewish News

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

This review will appear in the Cleveland Jewish News on 5/2/14

 

 

If the characters in Eugene O'Neill's "Beyond the Horizon," currently on stage at Ensemble Theatre and reviewed in the CJN, happened to meet the characters in Bathsheba Doran's "Kin," currently on stage at Dobama Theatre, they would have a good laugh.  

 

That is, if they had the energy to laugh after staring death, disease, and deprivation in the face for three acts and 2 ½ hours.  They would be laughing at the comparatively mundane problems encountered by the people who populate "Kin" - the bouts of insecurity, the minor speed bumps in a career, the inconvenience of the rain.    

 

But that is precisely the point of "Kin," a modern-day dramedy that explores the seemingly insignificant and inane aspects of our lives as seen through the relationships we develop while living it.  In 20 short, mostly two-person scenes, we meet a likable group of people who are sweating the little things in life as if they actually mattered.  Because they do.   

 

And we don't just meet them.  As the scenes progress, we learn that the random strangers on stage are in fact a circle of friends and family, and that their mundane problems have deep roots.  

 

We learn that the silly bouts of insecurity displayed by the out-of-work actress Helena (a manic but still appealing Leighann Delorenzo) are symptoms of depression and self-destruction.  That the work performed by Anna (a rather bland Elana Kepner), who is a poetry scholar at Columbia University and whose life, family and friends are at the center of this play, serves to replace what is missing at home.  That the rain triggers haunting, horrible memories for Linda (brilliantly depicted by Lenne Snively) that refuse to go away. 

 

"It's awful, isn't it?" asks Anna in the final scene of the play.  "What is?" says Sean (played with great sensitivity by Geoff Knox), an Irish personal trainer who falls in and out and in love with Anna.  "Getting to know someone," she replies. 

 

Everyone, the playwright is reminding us, has emotional baggage that come part and parcel with every relationship.  And it is fascinating and, yes, awful to discover their points of origin.

 

As if this point is not sufficiently clear in the script or in Shannon Sindelar's delicate direction of it, Tiffany Scribner's set consists of a wall comprised of baggage, like the lost luggage room at an airport.  The white-washed wall also serves as the surface for Mike Tutaj's projections, which effectively establish a sense of time and place for each scene.

 

This intimate play, first produced off-Broadway and performed without an intermission, is very clever in its construction and intriguingly abstract in its presentation.  The collection of small scenes - and the genuinely tender moments they provide, courtesy of some fine writing and an excellent ensemble that also includes Pete Ferry, Bob Keefe, Jeanne Task and David Bugher -- add up and are surprisingly moving.

 

Key to this play's success is that, by its conclusion, the audience cares about these people and their baggage.  If we do, then we leave better understanding our own relationships and our own baggage.  Mission accomplished.  Hell, even Eugene O'Neill's tragic characters would care about these people, which is no small feat.   

 

WHAT:            "Kin"

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

WHEN:           Through May 25

TICKETS:       $10 - $26.  Call 216-932-3396 or visit www.dobama.org.

 
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