[NEohioPAL] Review of "In a Forest, Dark and Deep" at none too fragile

[Bob Abelman via NEohioPAL]

none too fragile’s ‘In a Forest, Dark and Deep’ loses its way



Bob Abelman

Cleveland Jewish News, The News Herald, The Morning Journal

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics





Imagine the sensation of accidently walking into the backstage Green Room of “The Jerry Springer Show” during “Dysfunctional Siblings Week” and wishing you hadn’t.  



If that is what none too fragile theater was going for in its production of Neil LaBute’s deeply disturbing “In a Forest, Dark and Deep,” then it is a huge success.



Betty (Leighann Niles Delorenzo) and Bobby (Sean Derry) are sister and brother who have little in common. She's a married college professor with a prim demeanor and a torrid past, and he's a twice-divorced carpenter with a foul mouth, a violent streak and a grudge that’s been held since puberty.  On a stormy night when Betty urgently needs Bobby to help her pack up and empty her cabin in the woods, family secrets are revealed, truths are exposed, and old wounds are reopened, rubbed raw and speckled with salt.  



No, this is not a pleasant evening of theater.  “In a Forest, Dark and Deep” is a tortuous, arduous, voyeuristic piece of in-your-face storytelling that leaves you feeling dirty and wanting to run out the nearest exit without making eye contact with anyone.  It is as much of an emotional endurance test for the audience as the actors.



What should keep you in your seat is the desire to see where the playwright’s painstaking, piecemeal unraveling of these complex characters’ sorry and sordid lives leads and whether all the aggressive, hyper-realistic dialogue serves a greater purpose than shock-value.



Regarding this none too fragile staging, the play leads nowhere and no greater purpose surfaces.  The official opening of this production was delayed a week because the work was not yet ready for public consumption.  It is not ready still.  



For the rest of this review, go to www.clevelandjewishnews.com/columnists/
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