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<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"
align=center><FONT size=3><B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: #333333; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Mamaí
Theatre’s </SPAN></B><B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">‘Woman and Scarecrow’
offers more than meets the eye<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p></SPAN></B></FONT></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'"><FONT size=3><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></FONT></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'; 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'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Cleveland Jewish
News, The News Herald, The Morning Journal<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'; 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><B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></B></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><o:p><FONT
size=3> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><FONT
size=3>According to legend, when director and screenwriter <SPAN
style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold">George Seaton</SPAN> visited veteran
actor Edmund Gwenn as he lay on his deathbed, he said to Gwenn “This must be
terribly difficult for you.” Gwe<SPAN
style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold">nn</SPAN> replied: <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>“Dying is easy, comedy is hard.”<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p><FONT
size=3> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'"><FONT
size=3>Marina Carr’s “Woman and Scarecrow” suggests that quite the opposite is
true.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'"><o:p><FONT
size=3> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P
style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white; VERTICAL-ALIGN: baseline"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><FONT
size=3>The play takes place during the final moments of life for a middle-aged
woman, where we learn that her youthful passions and unlimited potential were
never realized due to a miserable marriage. <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Immobile and on her deathbed in rural
Ireland, Woman reflects on the disappointment that has been her bitter and
unsatisfying existence, and agonizes over every aspect of her pending demise
right down to the shoes she’s to wear at her
funeral.<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P
style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white; VERTICAL-ALIGN: baseline"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p><FONT
size=3> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"
class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Death,
we are told, is most certainly hard.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>But like fellow </SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">Irish writers Samuel Beckett and W.B.
Yeats, Carr approaches death with a twinkle in her eye, a dark and deliciously
absurd sense of humor, and an immense talent for <SPAN
style="BACKGROUND: white; COLOR: #252525">poetic expression.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></SPAN>“Woman and Scarecrow” is as funny
and lyrical as it is profound and powerful. </SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P
style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white; VERTICAL-ALIGN: baseline"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p><FONT
size=3> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P
style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white; VERTICAL-ALIGN: baseline"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><FONT
size=3>Much of the comedy comes from Woman’s interactions with her spiritual
counterpart, an enigmatic phantom called Scarecrow, who shares the stage as her
conscience or soul.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Scarecrow
relentlessly diminishes Woman’s morphine-enhanced flair for the romantic by
placing her sorry life into proper, callous and often comedic perspective.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P
style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white; VERTICAL-ALIGN: baseline"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p><FONT
size=3> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P
style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white; VERTICAL-ALIGN: baseline"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><FONT
size=3>Their constant give and take and Woman’s final preparations for death are
interrupted only by her philandering husband Him’s brief and disinterested
visits to her bedside, Auntie Ah’s unwanted offering of Catholicism as comfort
and counseling, and a feathered Death’s impatient cries emanating from the
armoire at the far end of the room.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN><o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"
class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'"><o:p><FONT
size=3> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"><FONT size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: #333333; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Mamaí
</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Theatre’s staging of
this complex play, like the names of the characters in it – Woman, Him,
Scarecrow, and Auntie Ah – could not be simpler.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN style="BACKGROUND: white">The
floor that is the theater’s performance space contains nothing but the bed in
which Woman lays, the armoire in which Death lays in wait, and a chair where
Scarecrow sits when not wandering the room.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; BACKGROUND: white; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><o:p><FONT
size=3> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><FONT size=3>At first
glance, it appears as if director Pandora Robertson has <SPAN
style="BACKGROUND: white">done this play a disservice </SPAN>by undermining all
the grand </FONT><SPAN style="BACKGROUND: white"><FONT size=3>metaphysical and
drug-induced imagery that pervades Carr’s often epic language.</FONT><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; BACKGROUND: white; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; BACKGROUND: white; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">For
more of this review, go to: <A
href="http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/features/article_425bef14-62e8-11e4-a6eb-6b85844c21ca.html">http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/features/article_425bef14-62e8-11e4-a6eb-6b85844c21ca.html</A><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>