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<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0in -9pt 0pt" class=MsoNormal
align=center><B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><SPAN
style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><FONT size=3>con-con’s ‘Amazons’ can’t see
the forest for the trees<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></B></P>
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style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><o:p><FONT
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<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal
align=center><SPAN style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><FONT size=3>Bob
Abelman<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal
align=center><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><FONT size=3>Cleveland Jewish
News<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></I></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal
align=center><SPAN style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><FONT size=3>Member,
International Association of Theatre Critics <o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
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align=center><SPAN style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><o:p><FONT
size=3> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
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style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><o:p><FONT
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<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><FONT size=3>You’ve got to admire
convergence-continuum for swinging for the fences with every production it
stages.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Unfortunately, its
rendering of Jordan Harrison’s “Amazons and Their Men,” an offbeat off-Broadway
success in 2008, misses by a mile.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN><o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
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style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><o:p><FONT
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<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><FONT size=3>The play offers us a
fictionalized version of real-life German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, who was
one of Hitler’s favorite propagandists.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>In 1939, she started work on her own project – the film “<SPAN
style="COLOR: black">Penthesilea,”</SPAN> about <SPAN style="COLOR: black">the
myth of Achilles’ battle with the Amazons – in which she cast herself as the
leader of the female warriors, who falls in love with the Greek
hero</SPAN>.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN><o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
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style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><o:p><FONT
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<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3><SPAN
style="COLOR: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial">The film was </SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial">never completed, but “Amazons and Their Men”
– a play with a message and a mischievous wit – imagines that it was and takes
us on that film shoot.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
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style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><o:p><FONT
size=3> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><FONT size=3>The intention is not to shed
light on Frau Riefenstahl’s innovative filmmaking techniques, although part of
the quirky charm of this play is having Riefenstahl narrate camera positions and
edits as film scenes are enacted on stage.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Rather, it exposes her efforts – and those of many German citizens – to
narrow their focus so to shut out the <SPAN
style="BACKGROUND: white; COLOR: black">encroaching evil of<SPAN
class=apple-converted-space> </SPAN>the Nazi regime.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="BACKGROUND: white; COLOR: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><o:p><FONT
size=3> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3><SPAN
style="BACKGROUND: white; COLOR: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial">This play
is a clever set up for caustic social commentary, for in it </SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial">Riefenstahl (Lauri Hammer) hires a Jewish
actor (Clint Elston) to play Achilles, a gypsy from Romania (Jack Matuszewski)
to play Achilles’ lover, and her sister (Jaclyn Cifranic), a lesbian, to play
every extra in the film.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We not
only have a microcosm of victims of the Third Reich but, as the play jumps back
and forth from the fantasy world of the film to the real world, we witness the
imminent intersection of the two.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
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style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><o:p><FONT
size=3> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><FONT size=3>Late in the play, for example,
Riefenstahl criticizes her sister’s acting performance in a death scene by
pointing to the atrocities occurring outside her studio and saying “they did it
better.”<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN><o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
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style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><o:p><FONT
size=3> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><FONT size=3>Sadly, convergence-continuum
misses the mark on these and most other poignant and comedic moments.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The play is performed without much
attention to detail and is consequently flat and rather uninteresting.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><o:p><FONT
size=3> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><FONT size=3>For more of this review, go to:
<A
href="http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/features/article_20657e68-20a6-11e4-a01a-001a4bcf887a.html">http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/features/article_20657e68-20a6-11e4-a01a-001a4bcf887a.html</A><o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>