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<p class="" style="line-height:14pt"><b style><span style="font-family:Palatino;color:black"><span style="color:rgb(255,0,0)"><br></span></span></b></p><p class="" style="line-height:14pt"><b style><span style="font-family:Palatino;color:black"><span style="color:rgb(255,0,0)"></span><br>
</span></b></p><p class="" style="line-height:14pt"><b style><span style="font-family:Palatino;color:black">CWRU/CPH MFA students excel in IDentity THEFT, devised theatre</span></b></p>
<p class="" style="line-height:14pt"><span style="font-family:Palatino;color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="" style="line-height:14pt"><span style="font-family:Palatino;color:black">Roy Berko</span></p>
<p class="" style="line-height:14pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Palatino;color:black">(Member, American
Theatre Critics Association)</span></p>
<p class="" style="line-height:14pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Palatino;color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="" style="line-height:14pt"><span style="font-family:Palatino;color:black">It is the purpose of the Case Western Reserve
University/Cleveland Play House MFA Acting Program to give the students a
chance to work with Americas leading theatre artists, appear on a professional
stage, and, during their last year, journey to New York to showcase their
talents.<span style> </span>The class of 2014 is
about halfway through their experience.<span style>
</span>Again, in IDentity THEFT, SEVEN LIVES FILTERED THROUGH THE IDEAS OF
AUGUST STRINDBERG, the members of this class provide quality performances.<span style> </span></span></p>
<p class="" style="line-height:14pt"><span style="font-family:Palatino;color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="" style="line-height:14pt"><span style="font-family:Palatino;color:black">The groups previous productions, THE MISANTHROPE
and IN ARABIA WED ALL BE KINGS, were both outstanding.<span style> </span>Individual members have also proven
themselves to be excellent as they appeared in Cleveland Play House main stage
productions. </span></p>
<p class="" style="line-height:14pt"><span style="font-family:Palatino;color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="" style="line-height:14pt"><span style="font-family:Palatino;color:black">IDentity THEFT is a perfect vehicle to highlight
each performer and his/her unique talents.<span style> </span>The play is not an authored script, but is </span><span style="font-family:Palatino">devised theater which encourages collaborative
creation, using spoken dialogue, poetry, mime, music, and dance as conceived by
the director, writers and performers.<span style>
</span>The process involves selecting a theme and then extracting ideas from
that central axis.<span style> </span></span></p>
<p class="" style="line-height:14pt"><span style="font-family:Palatino"> </span></p>
<p class="" style="line-height:14pt"><span style="font-family:Palatino">As the vignettes
unfold, each of the seven members of the unit blend their own real and
fictional experiences to relate a mini-tale in the tradition of August
Strindberg.<span style> </span>Strindberg, the father
of Swedish realistic writing, was a writer who drew on his personal experiences
</span><span style="font-family:Palatino;color:black">to create natural melodramas and naturalistic tragedies.<span style> </span>Like fellow Scandinavian, Henrik Ibsen,
and French writer, Emile Zola, he stressed the real.<span style> </span>He was less interested in the format of the play, not often
following the unwritten format rule of a beginning, middle and conclusion, but
rather a depiction that often did not include exposition, and often just
suddenly ended with no resolution or moral.<span style> </span>He dramatized the workings of the unconscious.</span></p>
<p class="" style="line-height:14pt"><span style="font-family:Palatino;color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="" style="line-height:14pt"><span style="font-family:Palatino;color:black">IDentity THEFT examines identities and how life
often steals or hides who we are.<span style>
</span>Sometimes a person is unaware of her/his motivations, as heredity and
environment meld to make an indescribable me.<span style> </span>As with Strindberg, who often was known to levitate between
reality and psychotic, each of the vignettes opened the characters to unknown
push and pull forces and logical and illogical actions.</span></p>
<p class="" style="line-height:14pt"><span style="font-family:Palatino;color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="" style="line-height:14pt"><span style="font-family:Palatino;color:black">Therese Anderberg, Bernard Bygott, Drew Derek,
TJ Gainley, Christa Hinckley, Sarah Kinsey and Stephen Spencer exposed the
real, the unreal, the imagined and the unimaginable as they told about their
selves and themselves.</span></p>
<p class="" style="line-height:14pt"><span style="font-family:Palatino;color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="" style="line-height:14pt"><i style><span style="font-family:Palatino">CAPSULE
JUDGMENT: IDentity THEFT, SEVEN LIVES FILTERED THROUGH THE IDEAS OF AUGUST
STRINDBERG, is fascinating theatre and gave additional proof of the quality of
the CWRU/CPH MFA Acting Programs class of 1904,</span></i><span style="font-family:Palatino;color:black"></span></p>
<p class="" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino"> </span></p>
<p class="" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino">IDentity THEFT runs through March 9, 2013 at the Helen
Rosenfeld Lewis Bialosky Lab Theatre (The Helen) on the lower level of CPHs
Allen Theatre.<span style> </span>For tickets call
216-241-6000 or go to <a href="http://www.clevelandplayhouse.com">www.clevelandplayhouse.com</a>.</span></p><p class="" style="text-autospace:none"><br><span style="font-family:Palatino"></span></p><p class="" style="text-autospace:none">
<span style="font-family:Palatino"><span style="color:rgb(255,0,0)"></span></span></p><p class="" style="text-autospace:none"><br><span style="font-family:Palatino"></span></p><p class="" style="text-autospace:none">
<span style="font-family:Palatino"><br></span></p>
<p class="" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino"> </span></p>
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