[NEohioPAL] Berko review: KIN @ Dobama

[Roy Berko]

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*“Kin” is a special experience at Dobama*



Roy Berko

(Member, American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Critics Circle)



Every once in a while a play comes along that, without histrionics,
searching for laughs or mystery plot twists, resonates with the human
connection.  “Kin,” now on stage at Dobama Theatre, is such a script.

Bathsheba Doran, the play’s author, has a wonderful sense of language
selection, creates scenes that are clear in their intent, puts forth
interactions that allow for understanding of the motivations of the
speakers, and blends mostly two-person dialogues into a cohesive whole.

Take director Shannon Sindelar’s precise direction, add a creative set
design by Tiffany Scribner, meaningful lighting by Marcus Dana, era and
character right costumes by Jenniver Sparano, appropriate musical bridges
by Richard Ingraham, and put them on stage with a superlative cast.   The
result is an engaging evening of theatre.

“Kin” centers on Anna, a Texas-bred army brat and young Ivy League poetry
scholar, who is having difficulty finding both her path to academic success
and a person with whom to share her life.

In her search for career success, she writes a magnum academic opus with
the deadly title: “Keats’s Punctuation.”  The issue becomes--how does one
get such a tome published?

For someone to of share her life, after being harshly rejected by her
egotistical collegiate mentor, she turns to internet dating sites.  Lo and
behold a total mismatch, an Irish physical trainer, comes onto her screen
and into her life.

What follows is a web of interactions which takes the viewer from the US to
Ireland, and the intertwining of multiple relational stories that include
mother-son, daughter-father, lover-lover, and husband-wife connections, as
well as  forays into infidelity, rape, alcoholism, agoraphobia, and cancer.

On the surface this is a soap-opera type plot, but in the hands of a
wordsmith like Doran, the result is an attention getting and keeping
experience.

The landscape of the modern world and the meaning of kin and kinship
sparkles.   The elusiveness of true human connection is probed.  The effect
of family is examined.  There’s drama, there is pathos, and there are
laughs.

Over a period of seven years and across two continents, we pleasurably
watch a collage of interlocking lives come together for better or for worse.

Elena Kepner puts on the persona of Anna, and creates a real person who
carries the weight of her past, hidden and exposed secrets, loyalties and
confusion.  This is a nicely controlled performance that rings of character
understanding.

Geoff Knox as Sean, Anna’s mismatched boyfriend, fully creates a character
filled with a sense of gentleness and sensitivity, which, in spite of the
odds, overcomes a lost-love and an upbringing filled with angst.

Lenne Snively, who along with Knox perform with consistent, understandable,
 Irish accents, is superb as the agoraphobic Linda, Sean’s maligned, near
alcoholic  mother.  There is a wonderful natural sense of being in her
characterization.

Rachel Lee Kolis well-develops the role of Rachel, Anna’s boarding school
friend.  This is a real Rachel, a ditsy, fragile young lady, desperate for
attention, at all costs.

Pete Ferry is properly military-uptight as Anna’s father.  The rest of the
cast all develop persons who are real and help move the story nicely along.

*CAPSULE JUDGMENT: KIN is one of those special scripts that happily gets a
superb production at Dobama.  It’s a play for everyone, whether the viewer
is looking for thoughtful moments, humorous interludes, or fine acting.
KIN is a must see evening of theater.*

KIN runs through May 25, 2014 at Dobama Theatre.  Call 216-932-3396 or
http://www.dobama.org for tickets.


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