[NEohioPAL] Review of "Slow Dance on the Killing Ground" at Ensemble Theatre

[Bob Abelman via NEohioPAL]

‘Slow Dance’ stumbles despite graceful Ensemble Theatre production 



Bob Abelman

Cleveland Jewish News, The News Herald, The Morning Journal

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics



A young black fugitive, a political refugee from Nazi Germany, and a Jewish girl seeking a backstreet abortion walk into a room.  



This sounds like the setup for a bad joke with a distasteful punchline, but it is the plot summary of William Hanley's three-act play “Slow Dance on the Killing Ground,” currently on stage at Ensemble Theatre.  



Written at a time when the existential plays of Jean-Paul Sartre, the avant-garde work of Samuel Beckett, and the biting dialogue of Edward Albee offered theatergoers creative, cutting-edge social commentary, Hanley’s drama was more concerned with the social dynamics – the slow dance – that takes place when a diverse group of helpless, victimized strangers are confined to the same small space and bare their wounds.  



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