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<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt" class=MsoNormal
align=center><B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">CVLT’s
‘The Gin Game’ called for a misdeal</SPAN></B><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><?xml:namespace
prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"
/><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">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; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: #1f497d; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">This
review will appear in the <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Times
</I>papers </SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">on
4/26/12</SPAN><SPAN style="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'; COLOR: black; 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'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">On the
surface, D.L. Coburn’s “The Gin Game” appears to be a simple, </SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">four-scene play about
two elderly people playing cards at a run-down nursing home.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>There is, of course, so much more to
this Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, but none of it is realized in the current
Chagrin Valley Little Theatre production.<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 play is built in
layers.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>When Fonsia Dorsey first
meets and is cajoled into playing gin with Weller Martin, he saves her from the
melancholy of being a new resident and she rescues him from residents he deems
too old, too sick and too dull.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>As
they become companions and increasingly disclose about their lives, their true
natures progressively rise to the surface. <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>His cantankerous charm gives way to
impatience and then pent-up frustration and bitter rage. Her proper and
conservative façade erodes to reveal a subtle but eventually maddening needling.
<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">In this CVLT
production, featuring Linda Ryan as Fonsia and Steve Ryan as Weller, there are
no layers, there is no progression, and no revelation occurs.<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">The preview night
performances of these actors are flat from the start and remained that way to
the finish.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Their characters’
unrelenting psychological battle is little more than tepid exchanges, and their
careless card playing does little to facilitate the rhythms so important to this
play.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Little is done to inspire the
comedy that is peppered throughout the script or justify Fonsia’s comments that
Weller has a “sarcastic streak” and “wonderful sense of humor.”<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Even less rouses or sustains the play’s
drama. <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'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">“The
Gin Game’s” </SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">pedigree should have
alerted Eric Oswald to the complexities that lie beneath the seemingly simple
storyline and informed his stage direction.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>After all, the 1977 Broadway production
starred the legendary </SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: #333333; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Hume
Cronyn and Jessica Tandy, and garnered Tony Award nominations for Best Play,
Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Director.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In 1997, the play was revived on
Broadway, starring Charles Durning and Julie Harris, and was nominated for a
Tony Award for Best Production of a Revival.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Cleveland royalty Reuben and Dorothy
Silver were in the 1994 and 2001 Ensemble Theater productions.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Talent like this is not attracted to
simple storytelling.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: #333333; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><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 Ryans are
certainly capable of better work, as their performances in last year’s CVLT
production of “Bloody Murder” attests.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>And perhaps this production of “The Gin Game” will find more substantial
footing with each performance.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Last week, however, it was playing a losing hand.<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">“The Gin
Game</SPAN></I><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: #333333; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">”
continues through May 5 </SPAN></I><STRONG><I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold">at
the Chagrin Valley Little Theatre’s River Street Playhouse,
</SPAN></I></STRONG><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">40
River Street, Chagrin Falls</SPAN></I><STRONG><I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold">.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>For tickets, which are
</SPAN></I></STRONG><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">$10, call
440-247-8955 or visit <B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><A href=""><FONT
color=#004276>www.cvlt.org</FONT></A></B>.</SPAN></I><I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-ansi-language: EN"
lang=EN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></I></P></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>