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<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">‘Grizzly Mama’ taps
the Obama in Dobama<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p></SPAN></B></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></B></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: #1f497d; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Bob
Abelman<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: #1f497d; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: #1f497d; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">News-Herald,
Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times,<o:p></o:p></SPAN></I></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: #1f497d; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">The
Morning Journal, Geauga Times Courier<o:p></o:p></SPAN></I></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: #1f497d; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Member,
American Theatre Critics Association <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></I></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt" class=MsoNormal
align=center><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: #1f497d; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">This
review will appear in the <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">News-Herald
</I></SPAN><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">on
9/16/11</SPAN><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></B></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Political
assassination is no laughing matter. <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">That is, unless it is
addressed by award-winning playwright George Brant and takes the form of
</SPAN><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Grizzly
Mamma</SPAN></I><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> —a commissioned,
world premiere production at Dobama Theatre.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Grizzly
Mamma</SPAN></I><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> is a dark comedy
that channels every liberal’s deepest fantasy: squelching the rising tide that
is Sarah Palin’s push toward the presidency. Of course, in Brant’s fertile and
fermenting imagination, the floodgate of possibilities opens wide and an extreme
and decidedly permanent solution is presented. <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Enter homicidal
homemaker Deb Marshall, played with gusto, daring and fastidious comic timing by
Heather Anderson Boll.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Deb was born of
feminist stock and is woefully aware that she has disappointed her elders by
living the suburban lifestyle as housewife and mother.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Newly divorced and eager to align
herself with her activist ancestors, she and her disgruntled teenage daughter
Hannah move to the wilderness of Alaska and next door to a Palinesque Republican
front-runner.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Deb’s mission
is to end the madness by offing her conservative, anti-feminist neighbor.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Brant’s play is very
clever on so many fronts. <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">He wisely keeps the
Grizzly Mama from ever stepping on stage, knowing that impersonation or any kind
of personification would make the politics and the notion of political
assassination too real to be entertaining.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Reality turns dark comedy into something deeply foreboding and
immediately unattractive.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Instead, we are
offered the presidential candidate’s teenage cub, Laurel, who, in the hands of
actress Erin Scerbak, is a wonderfully sympathetic and accessible ambassador for
her mother’s extremism. <SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Scerbak is
disarmingly charming in this role.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Brant also makes Deb
woefully ill-equipped for her new-found vocation and supplies her with an
equally inept sidekick in the form of her teenage daughter.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Caitlin Lewins is absolutely delightful
as Hannah and brings an authenticity to the dysfunctional mother/daughter
dynamic.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">By doing this, the
play’s comedy is circumstantial and springs from acerbic and hilarious dialogue
rather than easy and politically flavored punch lines.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This play is funny because of the sheer
absurdity of the situation and the people who populate it.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Brant’s
alliance with director Laura Kepley is, perhaps, his most clever
initiative.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Kepley had collaborated
on Brant’s <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Elephant’s </I></SPAN><I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Graveyard</SPAN></I><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">, about the lynching
of a circus elephant, among other productions. <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>She gets his humor and this is overtly
evident in this Dobama production.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Everything about the staging keeps the comedy in the forefront while
embracing Brant’s quick and quirky style of storytelling, including visible and
intriguing scene transitions rather than blackouts.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">This production comes
complete with a gorgeous log cabin set by Jill Davis and effective sound and
lighting design by Richard Ingraham and Marcus Dana,
respectively.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">The result is an
engaging, fluid and delightfully entertaining piece of original theater. <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This play certainly taps the Obama in
Dobama, with its liberal leanings, but it manages to take some shots at both
sides of the aisle and does so with aplomb and humor.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal><STRONG><SPAN
style="BORDER-BOTTOM: windowtext 1pt; BORDER-LEFT: windowtext 1pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0in; PADDING-LEFT: 0in; PADDING-RIGHT: 0in; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; BACKGROUND: white; COLOR: #333333; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; BORDER-TOP: windowtext 1pt; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; BORDER-RIGHT: windowtext 1pt; PADDING-TOP: 0in; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in">Dobama
Theatre’s mission</SPAN></STRONG><SPAN class=apple-style-span><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><FONT face=Calibri> </FONT></SPAN></SPAN><SPAN
class=apple-style-span><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; BACKGROUND: white; COLOR: #333333; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">is
to premiere the best contemporary plays by established and emerging
playwrights.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></SPAN></SPAN><I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Grizzly
Mamma</SPAN></I><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">?<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN class=apple-style-span><SPAN
style="BACKGROUND: white; COLOR: #333333">Paydirt.</SPAN></SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Grizzly
Mamma</SPAN></I><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">
</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic">c</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">ontinues through
October 2 at the Dobama Theatre, 2340 Lee Road, Cleveland Heights.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>For tickets, which range from $10 to
$26, call 216-932-3396 or visit <A href=""><FONT
color=#0000ff>www.dobama.org</FONT></A>.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>