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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><b><span style="font-family:Palatino"><br></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="color:rgb(255,0,0)"><b><span style="font-family:Palatino"><br>
</span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="color:rgb(255,0,0)"><b><span style="font-family:Palatino">•••••••••••••••••••••••</span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none">
<b><span style="font-family:Palatino"><br></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><b><span style="font-family:Palatino">“Kin” is a special experience at Dobama</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino">Roy Berko</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Palatino">(</span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Palatino">Member, American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Critics
Circle)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Palatino"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13pt"><span style="font-family:Palatino">Every once in a while a play comes along that,
without histrionics, searching for laughs or mystery plot twists, resonates
with the human connection.<span style> </span>“Kin,”
now on stage at Dobama Theatre, is such a script.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13pt"><span style="font-family:Palatino">Bathsheba Doran, the play’s author, has a wonderful
sense of language selection, creates scenes that are clear in their intent,
puts forth interactions that allow for understanding of the motivations of the
speakers, and blends mostly two-person dialogues into a cohesive whole.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13pt"><span style="font-family:Palatino">Take director Shannon Sindelar’s precise direction,
add a creative set design by Tiffany Scribner, meaningful lighting by Marcus
Dana, era and character right costumes by Jenniver Sparano, appropriate musical
bridges by Richard Ingraham, and put them on stage with a superlative
cast.<span style> </span>The result is an
engaging evening of theatre. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13pt"><span style="font-family:Palatino">“Kin” centers on Anna, a Texas-bred army brat and
young Ivy League poetry scholar, who is having difficulty finding both her path
to academic success and a person with whom to share her life.<span style> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13pt"><span style="font-family:Palatino">In her search for career success, she writes a </span><span style="font-family:Palatino">magnum
academic opus with the deadly title: “Keats’s Punctuation.”</span><span style="font-family:Palatino"><span style> </span>The issue becomes--how does one get
such a tome published?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13pt"><span style="font-family:Palatino">For someone to of share her life, after being
harshly rejected by her egotistical collegiate mentor, she turns to internet dating
sites.<span style> </span>Lo and behold a total
mismatch, an Irish physical trainer, comes onto her screen and into her
life.<span style> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13pt"><span style="font-family:Palatino">What follows is a web of interactions which takes
the viewer from the US to Ireland, and the intertwining of multiple relational
stories that include mother-son, daughter-father, lover-lover, and husband-wife
connections, as well as<span style> </span>forays
into infidelity, rape, alcoholism, agoraphobia, and cancer. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13pt"><span style="font-family:Palatino">On the surface this is a soap-opera type plot, but
in the hands of a wordsmith like Doran, the result is an attention getting and
keeping experience.<span style> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13pt"><span style="font-family:Palatino">The landscape of the modern world and the meaning
of kin and kinship sparkles.<span style>
</span>The elusiveness of true human connection is probed.<span style> </span>The effect of family is examined.<span style> </span>There’s drama, there is pathos, and
there are laughs.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13pt"><span style="font-family:Palatino">Over a period of seven years and across two
continents, we pleasurably watch a collage of interlocking lives come together
for better or for worse.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13pt"><span style="font-family:Palatino">Elena Kepner puts on the persona of Anna, and
creates a real person who carries the weight of her past, hidden and exposed
secrets, loyalties and confusion.<span style>
</span>This is a nicely controlled performance that rings of character
understanding.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13pt"><span style="font-family:Palatino">Geoff Knox as Sean, Anna’s mismatched boyfriend, fully
creates a character filled with a sense of gentleness and sensitivity, which,
in spite of the odds, overcomes a lost-love and an upbringing filled with
angst.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13pt"><span style="font-family:Palatino">Lenne Snively, who along with Knox perform with
consistent, understandable, <span style> </span>Irish
accents, is superb as the agoraphobic Linda, Sean’s maligned, near
alcoholic<span style> </span>mother.<span style> </span>There is a wonderful natural sense of
being in her characterization.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13pt"><span style="font-family:Palatino">Rachel Lee Kolis well-develops the role of Rachel, Anna’s
boarding school friend.<span style> </span>This is a
real Rachel, a ditsy, fragile young lady, desperate for attention, at all
costs.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13pt"><span style="font-family:Palatino">Pete Ferry is properly military-uptight as Anna’s
father.<span style> </span>The rest of the cast all
develop persons who are real and help move the story nicely along.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:13pt"><i><span style="font-family:Palatino">CAPSULE JUDGMENT: KIN is one of those special
scripts that happily gets a superb production at Dobama.<span style> </span>It’s a play for everyone, whether the
viewer is looking for thoughtful moments, humorous interludes, or fine acting.<span style> </span>KIN is a must see evening of theater.</span></i><span style="font-family:Palatino"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Palatino">KIN runs through May 25, 2014 at Dobama Theatre.<span style> </span>Call 216-932-3396 or </span><a href="http://www.dobama.org"><span style="font-family:Palatino;color:blue">http://www.dobama.org</span></a><span style="font-family:Palatino"> for
tickets.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br><span style="font-family:Palatino"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Palatino"><span style="color:rgb(255,0,0)">••••••••••••••••••••••••••••</span><br></span></p>
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