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The Allen Theatre renaissance that has been discussed in Tony Brown’s article on Sunday in the Plain Dealer is indeed excellent news.  There is absolutely no doubt about how powerful is the combination of the Cleveland Play House and Cleveland State University, as well as Playhouse Square and a host of investors.  With the existing theater spaces as well as the participation of Case Western Reserve’s MFA acting program the stage is set, literally, for a formidable arrangement of spaces, players, actors, directors, technicians.  What else could there be?  What possibly could be missing from the theatrical feast?  Oh, yeah, playwrights.

Allen Theatre Ceiling, Photo by Lisa Dejong

I really do feel impassioned about the opportunity that is opening up in Cleveland and the true and powerful force this represents for Northeast Ohio and the performing arts generally.  Coupled with the wonderful boon that the Cuyahoga Arts and Culture grants have been to this region (especially in a time of dwindling corporate and foundation donors), there is no doubt that performing arts represents a form of economic engine that can drive the revitalization of our communities—and God knows that stretch of Euclid Avenue really, really needs something.  For the truth of the economic cornucopia that performing arts offers neighborhoods, we need look no further than the Gordon Square Arts district and all the work that James Levin and Raymond Bobgan and of Cleveland Public Theatre and Near West Theatre and a host of others.  As I noted in my article on Theater Impact nearly a year ago, and as was mentioned in a Plain Dealer article by Steven Litt in 2007 (Energizing Detroit-Shoreway; Theater renovations, new building at the heart of neighborhood revitalization. June 24), theater has a definite economic impact on a region and especially on a neighborhood.  A fact discussed in various NEA reports as well (American Participation in Theater, AMS Planning and Research Corporation, Research Division Report #35, National Endowment for the Arts, Santa Ana, Calif. : Seven Locks Press, 1996).  The Gordon Square Arts District is poised to raise $30 million dollars itself for the renovation and reconstruction of the theater district on the Detroit Shoreway, and this $30 million dollar investment in the downtown theater district will turn Cleveland in to a powerhouse of theater with a true potential to rival Chicago as Brown notes about the Loop theater district there.

And I am pleased that what Tony Brown wrote about nearly two years ago, with regard to this possible merger and renovation, is coming true, as will some of what I wrote about then in another article.

What I continue to be sorely, sorely disappointed in is the lack of interest in playwrights or writers in general in this process.  I have learned over the years that you don’t wait for someone to ask you to come to a meeting or party or group—that you need to get off your ass and insert yourself into the mix and into the dialog and I guess, as much as anything, I’m asking aloud who should be inserting themselves into the conversation on behalf of writers?  Cleveland State University is a member of the Northeast Ohio Masters of Fine Arts (NEOMFA) program—a consortium of 4 schools: Akron, YSU, CSU, and Kent.  The CSU campus is the home site of the MFA playwrights unit.  This unit has turned out some fine writers already, including Michael Sepesy, a fine writer who has performed his work in the New York Fringe Festival and had many positive reviews of his work at CPT.  Michael Oatman, another fine, dynamic, and outrageous writer who’s work was recently featured in the New York Times, who is now a playwright in residence at the University of Nebraska, and who co-authored Warpaint which was a finalist for the John Cauble Short Play award and was produced at the National Kennedy Center American Theatre Festival in April, 2009 in Washington, DC.  Additionally, I’ll blow my own horn briefly as having authored a play that received Best Original Script by a Local Playwright, 2008, Rave and Pan.  There are others, including Michael Parsons who runs Theatre Daedalus in Columbus, OH, along with another talented writer in Jaclyn Villano. And, unfortunately, the dark side—with other fine writers like Peter Roth and Katie Buckels leaving Cleveland to find more receptive environments, such as Carnegie Mellon and Pace University respectively.

It is just unbelievable that MFA playwrights are not being mixed into the fold along side MFA actors and new theatrical spaces—and all of this brought together in a formidable tempest of creative production.  Why is Cleveland always waiting for winners and not reaching out and grabbing hold of its own fucking piece of the fated future and forging it into a dynasty—why must we look to Chicago for a Steppenwolf and a Mamet or Gilman, etc., who seems to look sideways at New York for something else? Well, I take that back, we can learn from Chicago: learn how to generate a strong theater environment for all theater artists, so that new work emerges from new playwrights using a system of powerful theater companies.

Went and saw Vogel’s play at None Too Fragile on Saturday night. The location is pretty nice on Front Street, right down in Cuyahoga Falls. The space itself is small and I got a seat right up front. Being a big fan of the intimacy that comes from The Liminis, I was ready for the small space and liked sitting right up in the front. The front row seats can’t be matched for getting excellent vibes from and views of the actors.

I have mixed feelings about the use of video for the “chorus” in the play and some of the other bit parts; but I was intrigued by it, too. As the play went on the video bits grew on me some, but the hiss of the audio sometimes took me out of the “world” of the play and made me realize I was watching something and not in it. I thought Alanna Romansky (Li’l Bit’s) interaction with the video was really good though and was impressed at how they worked through the timing of the thing. I also appreciated the inter-cut highway safety videos that Derry found to put in alongside Vogel’s captions.

I think what disappointed me about the video was the second to last scene–THE scene where the first sexual abuse incident transpires. Much of what I read about this play and the techniques that Vogel uses focus on what Li’l Bit reveals in this penultimate scene: “That day was the last day I lived in my body.” This last scene is designed to emphasize the point as there are three actors representing Li’l Bit: a girl on Peck’s lap, the 30 year-old Li’l Bit, and a disembodied voice speaking her lines. All this emphasizes the point that Sarah Stephenson makes in the article I wrote a while back, “evidence regarding how sexual abuse victims conceive of themselves, foremost being the sense of separation from their physical body.” In fact, throughout the play there is an intense and obsessive focus on the body and the rejection of it–including some scenes that were cut by Derry regarding Li’l Bit at a high school dance. Still, the initial molestation scene was powerful and had me shifting uncomfortably in my seat–so, minus the stage craft of actors and voices, the scene still has great power and an ability to cause discomfort.

The actors in the video were very good. Maryann Elder who played Li’l Bit’s mother was as close to a scene stealer as one can get, I imagine, with video; as was Jim Viront, who played Li’l Bit’s grandfather. And I have to say that one impression I got of the use of video was a distinct sense of memory that I don’t think I would have gotten from the physical presence of the actors. Mary Jane Nottage (grandmother) was very good, too.

Romansky did a very good job as Li’l Bit and I was impressed by her transitions between the various ages that the character goes through. I was equally impressed with the acting of Jeffrey Glover (Peck) who layered on the southern draw of rural Maryland like honey and played Peck with the necessary compassion, strength, and desperation (loss?) that the character deserves.

I am still very disappointed in Paula Vogel for the BB molestation scene which all but ruins the character of Peck and nearly makes him cardboard. If any scene should be cut, that is the one.

I’m not keen on the drive from Cleveland, but now that the kids are getting older I can make more of an effort to get off my ass and go see some plays; I like Derry and am glad to see that he and Romansky are creating theater. I hope Cuyahoga Falls appreciates their luck at having theater like this in their front yard. Derry takes chances and that is what is needed in the all-too-often aridity of play choices (such as adaptations of nineteenth century novelists) that are the fodder for stages. Theaters today are often too much hell bent on the bottom line, which can twist your soul as Mike Daisey points out.

As Derry showed with Bang and Clatter, he’s not afraid to go broke and he’s got the balls to shake it off, stand up, and come back for more. I don’t know if I could do the same and I have to tip my hat to him for that. And he’s still giving away beer and wine, which is a bonus.

None to Fragile is doing Mamet next, and I’ll be in the audience.