[NEohioPAL] Review of "Stranded on Earth" by Theatre Ninjas/Mamai Theatre

[Bob Abelman via NEohioPAL]

'Stranded on Earth' is a convoluted mystery worth unraveling

 

Bob Abelman

Cleveland Jewish News

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

This review will appear in the Cleveland Jewish News on 6/13/14

 

  

"It's clouds illusions I recall.
I really don't know clouds at all."

 

When we first meet Alexa in Eric Coble's one-act, one-woman play "Stranded on Earth," the tormented middle-aged artist has her eyes focused on the looming, omnipresent and descending cover of clouds she envisions overhead.  She references the clouds often for her mind, like the weather, is also overcast, turbulent, and undergoing extreme atmospheric pressure.  

 

The reason why her disposition is so gray and her temperament twirls like a tornado becomes clear by the end of this thoroughly engaging 75-minute production.  But it requires us to bear witness to a seemingly random series of convoluted and often funny diatribes that taps Alexa's memories, gives us access to her assorted self-reflections and, eventually, reveals the nature of the trauma she's endured.  

 

It is up to us to make sense of this mosaic of life experiences and unravel the mystery of her mania.

 

Alexa's brilliantly constructed disclosures contain language that creates vivid and powerful images.  Each one is separated by abrupt shifts in dramatic lighting, designed by Zachary Svoboda, that take on a hot or cold palette reflective of Alexa's particular mood.  Collectively, they run the gamut and exhaust the full range of human emotion.  

 

Derdriu Ring is one of only a handful of local actors who can play this role; none could play it better.  Everything Ring does is intriguing despite her doing it on a bare stage, save for an 8' x 8' platform that serves as Alexa's perch, podium and artist's canvas.  

 

Under Jeremy Paul's astute direction, Ring keeps us on the edge of our seats and listening carefully, so as to better understand how Alexa got so broken and why, according to her own words, being human keeps slipping through her fingers. 

 

Perhaps the play's most dramatic and revealing scene - and Ring's best - is when Alexa paints while discussing the creative process of making art.  She mentions the quest for balance and rhythm against the pulling tides and driving forces that are in her and surround her.  As she brushes, and then drips, and then flails and then pounds paint onto the canvas, it becomes clear that she is not talking about art at all.  She is talking about life.    

 

"Stranded on Earth" is a co-production of Theatre Ninjas and Mamai Theatre and is making its regional premiere.   It is the second of Coble's "Alexandra" trilogy plays.  In "A Girl's Guide to Coffee," performed locally two years ago at Actors' Summit, the artist is in her 20s and starting out in life.  In "The Velocity of Autumn," performed locally at the Beck Center for the Arts and having just completed a run on Broadway, she is in her 80s and facing death.

 

It is not necessary to see any of the other plays to understand any one of them.  But with writing this good, why wouldn't you want to.

 

 WHAT:           "Stranded on Earth"

WHERE:        Pilgrim Church, 2592 West 14th Street, Tremont

WHEN:           Through June 22

TICKETS:       $10 - $20, visit www.strandedonearth.brownpapertickets.com

 

 
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