[NEohioPAL] Review of "Alabama Story" at Ensemble Theatre

[Bob Abelman]

Ensemble’s ‘Alabama Story’ strikes a familiar, formidable chord



Bob Abelman

Cleveland Jewish News, The News Herald, The Morning Journal

Member, American Theatre Critics Association



Kenneth Jones’ “Alabama Story” may have been a 2014 finalist for the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, but the play – currently on stage at Ensemble Theatre – seems inspired by the works of Harper Lee and Thornton Wilder.



Like “To Kill a Mockingbird,” this play is a social-justice drama that addresses issues of race, class and gender in the American Deep South in the not-so-distant past. 



It is based on the true story of how a gentle and agenda-free children’s book about the forest nuptials of two bunnies – one black and the other white – stirs the blind passion of a segregationist Alabama State Senator (Joseph Milan) in Montgomery, the Cradle of the Confederacy, in 1959. His campaign to rid the South of “The Rabbits’ Wedding” crosses swords with graciously defiant librarian Emily Reed (Anne McEvoy) and her protective young assistant (Cody Kilpatrick Steele).



And, as does “Our Town,” the story unfolds metatheatrically and the storytelling is intriguingly romanticized.



Everything on stage is presented in a slightly heightened manner as characters occasionally direct-address the audience, time and place become pliable, and a self-aware central character assumes control over the onstage action.  



Director Tyler Whidden does a marvelous job of making all this work in Ensemble Theatre’s Ohio premiere production of this play.   



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