Western Reserve Playhouse closes season with mystery9/17/2015 - West Side Leader By David Ritchey | | | Irv Korman, at left, and Dan Colaner share a scene in Western Reserve Playhouse’s production of “Night of January 16th.” | | Photo courtesy of Michael Kermizis | BATH — Do we really know what happened the night of Jan. 16? Maybe someone was murdered, or maybe not. That’s for the jury to decide.What happened that night is the subject of “The Night of January 16th,” which is on stage through Sept. 26 at Western Reserve Playhouse. The show is a courtroom drama by Ayn Rand and it opened on Broadway in 1935. The 80-year-old script has been staged for theaters, film, TV, radio and, now, community theater. Interestingly enough, the long script holds up in Western Reserve Playhouse’s offering of this intellectually challenging drama. The show has a cast of 17 performers. Karen (Beth Gaiser) is on trial for the murder of Bjorn Faulkner, a wealthy tycoon. He owns buildings, companies and, some would say, Karen. She has been his mistress for more than 10 years.However, Bjorn recently married another woman, Nancy Lee (Elizabeth Allard). Her father, the president of a bank, made a significant loan to Bjorn and may or may not have demanded he give up his mistress.But, on the night in question, a man’s body fell or was thrown from Karen’s balcony on the 50th floor of a building. Was she responsible? Is she the killer? Was it Bjorn’s body?In the trial, District Attorney Flint (Meg Hopp) and Defense Attorney Stevens (Daniel Colaner) fight for the truth. In order to get at the truth, they question a large number of witnesses — this explains the large cast. Harriet DeVeto, who plays Magda, is superior as Bjorn’s maid. Magda knows what happened in Bjorn’s household and hates his mistress.A young thug, Regan (Ron Young), storms into the courtroom to declare his love for Karen. But, we have to question whether he was hired to kill Bjorn. When he’s finally called as a witness, he only confuses the issue all the more.Only the jury will make the decision. The jury is composed of nine members of the audience, who are placed in the jury seats, and in the last moments of the play, they announce if the mistress is guilty or innocent. Consequently, the play could have one of two endings — innocent or guilty.Tom Stephan plays Judge Heath and works to control the attorneys, the witnesses and the audience. As usual, Stephan turns in a fine performance.Both of the lawyers, Hopp and Colaner, are fine actors. Their work has been visible in the Akron area dating back several shows.For set construction, the program credits three people — Sue Snyder, Jack Steele and Jim Gremba. The set functioned well on the small stage and helped keep the focus on each witness in his/her turn.The production was successful, in part, because of the fine work of director Brian Westerley. He has directed several shows in Northeast Ohio and is ranked as one of the best directors in our area. He recently received the directing award from the Ohio Community Theater Association (OCTA) for a production of “Other Desert Cities,” produced by the Wolf Creek Players. (My review of this show ran in this publication in December 2014. It can also be accessed at www.akron.com.) The only problem I find with “Night of January 16th” is the length of the script. The cast and director kept the performance moving quickly, but the script, like so many of Rand’s novels, is simply too long.For ticket information, call 330-620-7314. You might get lucky and be called to be a juror. David Ritchey has a Ph.D. in communications and is a professor of communications at The University of Akron. He is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association and the Cleveland Critics Circle.