[NEohioPAL] Review of "First Love" at none too fragile

[Bob Abelman via NEohioPAL]

Intriguing ‘First Love’ offers life by the slice 



Bob Abelman

Cleveland Jewish News, The News Herald, The Morning Journal

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics

  



The none too fragile theater in Akron contradicts its namesake by staging Charles Mee’s “First Love,” an all-too-fragile tale about falling in love for the first time.



But this play is unlike the myriad of other stories that have tapped this evergreen theme. “First Love’s” Edith and Harold are mature, sophisticated, well-read adults who meet each other very late in life and after a lifetime of experiences.  



And through Mee’s surreal storytelling, all the iconic moments that make up the full cycle of a long-term romantic relationship – the first meeting, the first date, the first sex, the first fight, the break up and the reconciliation – are cleverly condensed into one scene in one act.  



Rather than showing us Edith and Harold experiencing these moments, the two pull memories from their past relationships and narrate each glorious step and each painful misstep as if reliving them.  “I think what brings people together,” says Edith, “is their common humanity and what pulls them apart is their separate histories.”  We witness both in a mere 90 minutes.



It’s a bumpy ride.  



In his memoir, ''A Nearly Normal Life,'' Mee writes that his plays, like life, are “broken, jagged, filled with sharp edges, filled with things that take sudden turns, clinging to each other, smash up, veer off in sickening turns.”  Such is “First Love” and director Sean Derry’s greatest contribution is allowing veteran actors Anne McEvoy and Robert Hawkes to navigate the rough terrain on their own terms and with little interference from obtrusive lighting, set and sound design. 



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


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