CPT’s ‘Feefer Rising’ is a fierce piece of storytelling

 

Bob Abelman

Cleveland Jewish News, The News Herald, The Morning Journal

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics

 

 The end of the year is a melancholic time of reflection, when many of us look back at our hours upon the earth, evaluate our journey’s trajectory, and make adjustments accordingly. 

 

It is little wonder that, in December, our stages are filled with fictional characters doing the same, whether it’s Scrooge’s eleventh-hour revelation to “live in the Past, the Present, and the Future” in Great Lakes Theater’s “A Christmas Carol” or Peter Pan’s realization that “life is an awfully big adventure” in Dobama’s “Peter and the Starcatcher.”

 

So it is not surprising that the story in Faye Hargate’s “Feefer Rising,” currently on stage at Cleveland Public Theatre, has a similar trope of self-reflection:  a young girl’s discovery of identity and sexuality on her arduous journey toward womanhood.

 

What is surprising about this World Premiere production of Hargate’s semi-autobiographical one-woman play, which is co-created and directed by Raymond Bobgan, is the storytelling.  For it is daring, disorienting, and so very far from melancholic.

 

For more of this review, go to www.clevelandjewishnews.com/columnists/.