<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><b><span style="font-size:24pt;font-family:Helvetica">Theater review: The line between truth and ‘Fiction’</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Helvetica">By Kerry
Clawson <br>
Beacon Journal staff writer</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:#999999">Published: January 22, 2013 - 10:04 PM | Updated: January 23,
2013 - 12:16 AM</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman""></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><i><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Helvetica"> </span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><i><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Helvetica">Fiction</span></i><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Helvetica"> is a wonderful
wordsmith’s mystery, full of eloquent dialogue that peels away at the truth bit
by bit.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Helvetica">This intriguing
play, tautly directed by MaryJo Alexander at Actors’ Summit, is full of tension as it explores the
line between truth and fiction for two authors, who are husband and wife. <i>Fiction</i>,
a regional premiere in Akron,
was written in 2002 by Steven Dietz, one of the nation’s most produced
playwrights.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Helvetica">Dietz, who divides
his time between Seattle and Austin, Texas, also penned the comedy <i>Becky’s New Car</i>,
which Actors’ Summit
produced nearly two years ago.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Helvetica">In <i>Fiction</i>,
writers Michael and Linda begin their game of verbal sparring the minute they
meet in a Parisian café. Linda refers to Michael as “a man who has made his way
through the world with bluster and hyperbole” yet both find the artfully turned
phrase a powerful aphrodisiac.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:5.05pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:5.05pt;margin-left:0in;background:white"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Helvetica">Twenty years later
in their marriage, they discover that Linda has a malignant brain tumor and has
only three weeks left to live. She asks to read her husband’s journals, and he
reluctantly agrees. He will read hers once she has died.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:5.05pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:5.05pt;margin-left:0in;background:white"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Helvetica">As the passionate,
intellectual Linda, actress Sally Groth’s face seems to be an open book. Or is
it? She brings an intense yet luminous vitality to Linda that makes it
understandable why her husband would remember her as “achingly vibrant” upon
their first meeting. But writing, like talk, can be cheap. Is “achingly
vibrant” really what Michael wrote about Linda in his journal that first day in
Paris?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:5.05pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:5.05pt;margin-left:0in;background:white"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Helvetica">Through Michael,
Dietz points out a truth about human nature: We tend to romanticize the memory
of momentous events in our lives, when what was said may actually have been
mundane.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:5.05pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:5.05pt;margin-left:0in;background:white"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Helvetica">As portrayed by Bob
Keefe, Michael is a smug bore who’s so in love with his own words, they become
trite and precious. He completely turns off Abby, whom he meets at a writer’s
colony, with his purple language that turns everyday spoken communications into
over-the-top, flowery prose.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:5.05pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:5.05pt;margin-left:0in;background:white"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Helvetica">Michael vows he’s
above adapting his stories for the big screen. Nevertheless, he becomes a
best-selling author whose books are turned into films.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:5.05pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:5.05pt;margin-left:0in;background:white"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Helvetica">Linda, on the other
hand, is a one-hit wonder. Yet it is implied that she is the superior writer.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><i><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Helvetica">Fiction</span></i><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Helvetica"> delves fascinatingly
into the nature of writing as well as the egotism involved in the process. One
of Linda’s former writing professors is quoted as saying, “The lies begin when
we lift the pen.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:5.05pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:5.05pt;margin-left:0in;background:white"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Helvetica">Actors’ Summit newcomer Cassandra
Capocci creates a no-nonsense character in Abby, who cuts through all of
Michael and Linda’s posturing. She is attractive, dry, unerringly confident and
highly likable. Although at first we don’t understand how she really fits into
this story, she becomes a surprisingly vital character.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:5.05pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:5.05pt;margin-left:0in;background:white"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Helvetica">Secrets grow like
cancers in this story. Dietz’s elegantly written play toys with our minds,
keeping us constantly guessing. His drama is replete with irony, and its scenes
of foreshadowing are tightly connected to the rest of the story.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><i><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Helvetica">Fiction</span></i><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Helvetica"> is for mature
audiences only, due to its adult language and content. Audiences will
thoroughly enjoy soaking up Dietz’s rich language in this well-crafted story.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:5.05pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:5.05pt;margin-left:0in;background:white"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Helvetica">Let’s just say Linda
and Michael’s truth IS stranger than fiction.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Helvetica">Arts writer Kerry
Clawson may be reached at 330-996-3527 or<a href="mailto:kclawson@thebeaconjournal.com"><span style="color:#000099">kclawson@thebeaconjournal.com</span></a>.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><br></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:8pt;font-family:'Bookman Old Style'"> </span><a name="OLE_LINK2"><u><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Palatino;color:blue">Well written FICTION gets
excellent production at Actors’ Summit</span></u></a><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Bookman Old Style'"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a name="OLE_LINK1"></a><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Palatino"> </span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Bookman Old Style'"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Palatino">Roy Berko</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Bookman Old Style'"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Palatino">(Member, American Theatre
Critics Association & Cleveland Critics Circle)</span></i><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Bookman Old Style'"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Palatino"> </span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Bookman Old Style'"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Palatino">Tennessee</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Palatino">
Williams, Edward Albee, William Inge, Arthur Miller, Stephen Dietz. What
do these playwrights have in common? They are on the list of the top ten
American writers who have the most produced plays. Never heard of
Dietz? You are not alone. He is a regional playwright who makes a living
as a college professor and writing scripts that are done in
mid-America. </span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Bookman Old Style'"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Palatino"> </span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Bookman Old Style'"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Palatino">Dietz is a prolific writer,
having penned more than 30 original plays. He’s scribed political, comedic, and
personal scripts. Most center on the effects of personal betrayal and
deception. </span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Bookman Old Style'"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Palatino"> </span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Bookman Old Style'"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Palatino">In contrast to playwrights
who write a script, showcase it, and then have some production company stage
it, many of Dietz’s works go from computer right into acting editions that are
published by Dramatists Play Service or Samuel French. Many of his short
plays appear in anthologies. Broadway is not on the list of sites for his
works.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Bookman Old Style'"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Palatino"> </span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Bookman Old Style'"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Palatino">Actors’ Summit, which is producing FICTION, a 2002
Dietz work, did a delightful production of his commissioned piece, BECKY’S NEW
CAR, in 2011, which was written as a birthday present from a man to his wife.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Bookman Old Style'"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Palatino"> </span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Bookman Old Style'"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Palatino">Dietz is a wordsmith.
He writes poetic language and produces quotable feasts. His lines include
such bon mots as describing a character in FICTION as “having a mouth like a
machine that goes by itself.” Another character states, “you don’t leap a
shadow, you just run through it.” Describing a discussion between a man
and his wife, he states, “The point? Why does there need to be a point. . .the
Great Reductiveness in which everything we say must be shrunk down to You Make
a Point and I Refute it; I Make a Statement and You Rebut It. Is that really
the best we can do?.” A secret that his ill wife is keeping inspires the
statement, “A secret, like a disease, is a very human thing. It hides inside
you. Discovers where you are most vulnerable. And then it hurts you.”</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Bookman Old Style'"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Palatino"> </span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Bookman Old Style'"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Palatino">FICTION centers on an
author (Michael), his wife (Linda) , his lover (Abby), and a series of
secrets. The married duo originally met at a Paris café, develop an argumentative
repartee, and avoid “real talk” by playing verbal ping pong. Michael and Abby
met at a writer’s seminar, and have a strained relationship.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Bookman Old Style'"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Palatino"> </span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Bookman Old Style'"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Palatino">Linda, who has been
diagnosed with a fatal brain tumor, teaches literary fiction and book writing,
and is the author of a critically acclaimed novel based on her supposed rape
while in South Africa.
Michael is a commercially successful novelist who is uncomfortable with his
having “sold out” to the movie industry and forced to write best selling pithy
novels. Both are prolific journal keepers and it is their journals which serve
as the touchstone of their problems.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Bookman Old Style'"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Palatino"> </span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Bookman Old Style'"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Palatino">Linda figures she has about
" twenty meals" left in her life, and asks Michael to read her
heretofore strictly private journals after her death, and she asks to read his.
She explains " “It's ludicrous…not to mention vain -- I mean vain in
a truly Tom Wolfe-ian sort of way -- to think that they are not real, that I am
not real unless someone reads them." From this request,
through a series of audience affronts and interactions, we are led down an
intriguing path which reveals much and makes for the questioning of the truth
of it all.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Bookman Old Style'"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Palatino"> </span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Bookman Old Style'"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Palatino">The well paced Actors’ Summit production, which
is adeptly directed by MaryJo Alexander, is compelling. Though it is all
words, with no comedy, and no explosive action, there are enough highlighted
twists and turns and questions of what is true and what is fiction, to grab and
hold the audience.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Bookman Old Style'"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Palatino"> </span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Bookman Old Style'"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Palatino">Sally Groth (Linda), Bob
Keefe (Michael) and Cassandra Capocci (Abby) each develop a real, living
character. The parts aren’t acted, they are lived. </span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Bookman Old Style'"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Palatino"> </span></i><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Bookman Old Style'"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Palatino">CAPSULE JUDGEMENT:
FICTION </span></i><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Palatino">is a well crafted script
which should be appreciated by people who enjoy good acting and literate
dialogue. I’d class it as a “go see” for those who can forsake lots of
pseudo-drama or escapist comedy.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Bookman Old Style'"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Palatino"> </span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Bookman Old Style'"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Palatino">For tickets to FICTION,
which runs through February 3, call 330-342-0800 or go to <a href="http://actorssummit.org">actorssummit.org</a>.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Bookman Old Style'"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Palatino"> </span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Bookman Old Style'"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Palatino">Coming up: ACTORS’ Summit’s next offering is
the recent off-Broadway smash, FREUD’S LAST SESSION, from February 28-March
17. It will star 2012
Cleveland Critics Circle’s Best Actor award winner
Brian Zoldessy. For a review of the off-Broadway show go to <a href="http://www.royberko.info/" target="_blank">http://www.royberko.info</a> and
search under the Broadway link.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Bookman Old Style'"></span></p><p></p>