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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><b style><span style="color:black">“A
Map of Virtue” confounds at convergence continuum </span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="color:black">Roy Berko</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black">(Member, American Theatre Critics
Association, Cleveland Critics Circle)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="color:black">Every once in a while a theatrical production results in
a “what is going on?” and “why is time and energy being wasted on this?”
reaction.<span style> </span>Such is the case with “A
Map of Virtue” now on stage at convergence continuum.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="color:black">I thought maybe it was just my limited insight into the
world of the obtuse, so I went on an internet search to find out the “true
meaning” of what I had just seen.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="color:black">A reviewer of the first staging of the play stated, </span><span style="color:rgb(38,38,38)">“</span><span style="color:rgb(42,42,42)">I think the play is a little bit of a formal adventure,
because it's symmetrical, but it contains a varied emotional landscape which
includes love, horror and friendship. It's also about the present, the
supernatural, and the ways we try to understand evil.”<span style> </span></span><span style="color:rgb(38,38,38)"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="color:rgb(42,42,42)"><span style> </span>(Okay,
that’s enough to stimulate a “with all that double talk, what are you, or for
that matter the playwright, trying to say if it takes that much obfuscation to
explain the unexplainable?)<span style> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="color:rgb(42,42,42)"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="color:rgb(42,42,42)">The review continues, “The thing is, you think it's about
something and then it's not. It's vague, because you have to invest in
the story. There's a possible love story, and then there
isn't. There's all these bird images.”<span style> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="color:rgb(42,42,42)"><span style> </span>(What’s
the play about?<span style> </span>What’s the purpose
of the author?<span style> </span>Why did she spend
time writing it if the only result is vagueness and no message?) </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="color:rgb(42,42,42)"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="color:rgb(42,42,42)">And, yet, another attempt to educate the attendee:<span style> </span>“Mark and Sarah are obsessed with
birds, and that's what brings them together. Once things happen in the middle
of the play, the second half of the play is these characters trying to
understand what they saw, and how to live with it.”<span style> </span>“<i>A Map Of Virtue</i> is about morality.”<span style> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="color:rgb(42,42,42)"><span style> </span>(Oh,
its about morality!<span style> </span>What
specifically leads to that conclusion?<span style>
</span>What does morality in this context mean?)<span style> </span></span><span style="color:rgb(38,38,38)"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="color:rgb(42,42,42)"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="color:rgb(42,42,42)">The author, <span style> </span>herself,
says, “A lot of the fear and mystery and silence came out of the fact that I
was in the woods; I wasn't able to talk, and I was a little bit
scared. The flip side of that is: when you're out in nature, and you're
silent, you can explore issues that are more complicated than when you're in
the city, when you're so busy multitasking and your imagination can get
somewhat limited. Going out into the woods gives you a larger creative
landscape that you can play around in.”<span style>
</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="color:rgb(42,42,42)"><span style> </span>(Well,
that should clear it up.<span style> </span>Yeah,
sure!)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="color:rgb(42,42,42)"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style>Another reviewer tries to save the day (and the play) by explaining,
“In the end, ‘A Map of Virtue’ is the mirror image of the way it’s told. Just
as a tidy structure frames some serious quirks, an outrageous episode becomes a
window into a resonant tale of loss, lives not lived and the unlikely moments
that hold relationships together.”<span style>
</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style><span style> </span>(What?<span style> </span>What? What?)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="color:rgb(42,42,42)"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style>So, here’s my conclusion:<span style>
</span>The narration is unclear, the plot development is unclear, the author
seems unclear as to her purpose.<span style>
</span>The reviewers are confused, but afraid to admit it, so they write in
circles and abstractions. <span style> </span>They don’t
want to be accused of being unintellectual.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style>You want to know the story?<span style>
</span>There is a Hitchcock-like bird attack while two people (Sarah and Mark)
in a coffee shop are looking at each other, but not communicating.<span style> </span><span style> </span>There is a little bird statue, who becomes our guide through
the story, which was stolen by Mark from the office of the school official who
molested him as a preteen.<span style> </span>The duo
accidentally meet two other times, the second time at a party, are invited to a
stranger’s house for another “party,” which turns out not to be a party. <span style> </span>They are locked up in a room, visited by
a man in a bird mask and the female who invited them to the party, given little
food, have no bathroom facilities.<span style>
</span>Through a window<span style> </span>they see
smoke or children or something playing outside, are saved by Mark’s lover who
tracks them on Mark’s cell phone GPS, and spend a lot of time babbling about if
they saw children.<span style> </span>(I swear,
that’s it.)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style>The cast is fine.<span style> </span>(I do wonder
if they understand the play any better than the past and present reviewers, the
director, or anyone else.) <span style> </span>Cory Molner creates some nice lighting effects. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><i style><span style="color:black">Capsule
Judgement:<span style> </span></span></i><i style><span style>I guess I’m old fashioned.<span style> </span>I prefer a play that, when it is
over, I have some idea of what went on and take from it either having
experienced a good laugh, a bit of real intrigue, a message, or a moral.<span style> </span>Sorry, philosophically abstract
gibberish, and a plot in search of a purpose, isn’t my thing.<span style> </span>If it’s yours, you’ll really be turned
on by “A Map of Virtue.’<span style> </span></span></i><i style><span style="color:rgb(42,42,42)"> </span></i><i style><span style></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><i style><span style="color:black"> </span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="color:black">“A Map of Virtue,’ July 12, 2014 at 8 pm Thursdays,
Fridays and Saturdays at convergence-continuum’s artistic home, The Liminis, at
2438 Scranton Rd. in Cleveland’s Tremont neighborhood. For information and
reservations call 216-687-0074.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black">Con-con’s next show is “Amazon and Their Men” by Jordan
Harrison, which runs from August 8-30.</span></p>
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