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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'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Humor
and unhappiness strike a balance in Beck’s ‘Blue Leaves’ <?xml:namespace prefix
= o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><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'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><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><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, 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,
International Association of Theatre Critics <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">News-Herald
o</I></SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">n
3/29/13</SPAN><SPAN style="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><I><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></I></B></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; 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'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">For
the next three weeks, The Beck Center for the Arts in Lakewood is offering
one-stop shopping for those seeking solace in the desperate lives of
others.<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'; COLOR: black; 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; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Midway
through an 8-week run on Beck’s small, black box stage is “Next to Normal,” a
heart-wrenching musical portrait of a family crippled by manic-depression.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Opening this past weekend on its main
stage is John Guare’s<SPAN style="COLOR: black"> absurdist tragicomedy “The
House of Blue Leaves,” a manic laugh-fest about a schizophrenic woman and the
miserable man who no longer loves her.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></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; 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'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">“The
House of Blue Leaves” is set in Queens, New York in 1965 on the day Pope Paul VI
visits NYC.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In the course of this
much anticipated event, a series of escalating, increasingly bizarre, and
seemingly unrelated incidents occur.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>The common theme in all this anarchy is the American obsession with
celebrity, grounded in the belief—the desperate hope, really—that the grass is
greener on the other side of the fence.<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'; COLOR: black; 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'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">At
the play’s epicenter is Arty Shaughnessy, the unhappily married zookeeper who
envisions himself being a famous songwriter with a new wife and a new life.
<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>He is so blind to his own
ineptitude that he gets neither.<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; 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'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">John
Simon’s <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">New York</I> magazine review of
the 1986 Broadway revival of this 1966 play beautifully captured its
irreverence.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>He noted that the
playwright “was able to crossbreed American madcap farce with imported
absurdism, as if Ionesco had collaborated with George Abbott.”<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></SPAN><SPAN class=st><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: #222222; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Eugène
Ionesco wrote</SPAN></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">
“</SPAN><SPAN>The Bald Soprano” and </SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-ansi-language: EN"
lang=EN>many other 1940s plays that helped define Theater of the Absurd, while
</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">George
Abbott was director of “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” and many
other broad comedies that served as the laugh track to the
1960s.<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"><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'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">The
trick to effectively staging a show like “The House of Blue Leaves” is walking
that fine line between absurdity and broad comedy, so that both pathos and
pratfalls stroll hand-in-hand.<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'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">A
good production is a collaboration between Ionesco and Abbott, not Abbott and
Costello.<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; 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'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Although
this Beck Center production loses its balance late in the game by tilting toward
the titillating, the talented cast under Russ Borski’s astute direction delivers
a superb show.<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; 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'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Robert
Ellis is marvelous as Arty.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>His
greatest achievement is taking a character with little redeeming value and
rendering him vulnerable and accessible.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Ellis finds and fathoms all the dark places that lurk between the comedic
moments and embraces the gorgeous poetry the playwright uses when his characters
reveal their pain.<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'; COLOR: black; 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'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">This
is particularly evident in a phone call Arty makes to an old friend, a big-shot
Hollywood film maker named Billy Einhorn (a wonderful Todd Hancock).<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>While rekindling the relationship and
conniving his way into a trip to LA that never happens, Ellis manages to provide
a palatable undercurrent of longing and desperation.<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'; COLOR: black; 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'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Carla
Petroski does the same as Bunny, Arty’s downstairs girlfriend.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>She is hilarious but never loses her
character’s sharp edge and driving hunger for the things Arty’s pending fame can
supply.<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; 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'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Juliette
Regnier, as Arty’s schizophrenic wife Bananas, is brilliant.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>She communicates her character’s
outlandish delusions with such conviction and creativity—best showcased during a
soliloquy about meeting with an unlikely group of celebrities at 42<SUP>nd</SUP>
Street and Broadway—that the black comedy bubbles to the surface without turning
too dark or ominous.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Regnier’s
Bananas is more tragicomic than pathetic, which makes her particularly
intriguing and absolutely endearing. <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><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'; COLOR: black; 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'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">This
production goes slightly askew in Act 2.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Amidst the frenzy surrounding the Pope’s visit, all hell breaks loose as
Billy Einhorn’s girlfriend Corrinna (played too broadly by Christine Tallon) and
a gaggle of wayward nuns (played too broadly by Tali Cornblath, Hannah Storch
and Patricia Walocko) show up at the door.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>At the same time, Arty’s anarchist son Ronnie’s (Nicholas Chokan) plot to
kill the Pope unfolds.<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'; COLOR: black; 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'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Director
Borski, whose prominent funny bone was on display in last year’s delightful Cain
Park production of “Avenue Q,” gives into temptation and goes for the laughs. He
gets them, but nudges this precariously balanced production off its hard-earned
mark.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Only Regnier’s transfixing
performance stays the course.<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; 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'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Borski’s
set design can be credited with keeping the production from venturing too far
from its true north.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The shabby,
cluttered Shaughnessy apartment and </SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold">Joseph
Carmola</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">’s
oppressive lighting design creates an air of claustrophobia that dampens
excessive frivolity as it rises. <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And nothing says no escape from the
miserable lives lived by the people who populate this play better than the
security gate in the living room that keeps Bananas, and the rest of us, from
leaving.<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; 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'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">The
grass may be greener on the other side of the fence but, in this wild ride of a
tragicomedy, the trees have blue leaves and that fence is chain link and
impenetrable.<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'; COLOR: black; 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><I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">“The
House of Blue Leaves</SPAN></I><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: #232323; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">”
continues t</SPAN></I><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">hrough April 21 at
the Beck Center for the Arts in Lakewood.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>For tickets, which range
from $17 to $28, call 216-521-2540 x10 or visit <A href=""><FONT
color=#0000ff>www.beckcenter.org</FONT></A>..<o:p></o:p></SPAN></I></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>