THE AKRON BEACON JOURNAL: New theater company does musical triple play by Tony Mastroianni

The Cleveland Theater Company, the area's newest professional theater group, inaugurated its first season Saturday with what is essentially a trio of musicals.

Under the umbrella title of The Apple Tree, Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick, the team responsible for Fiddler on the Roof, turned three short stories into a three-act musical, each act a self-contained unit. The same players perform in all three, which provides the only continuity.

The stories are Mark Twain's The Diary of Adam and Eve, Frank Stockton's The Lady or the Tiger, and Passionella ny Jules Feiffer.

The leading performances are done by Paul Floriano, Wayne Turney and Toni Fromson, all of them good, but Fromson's quite remarkable.

The first act, about Adam and Eve, is the best of the three, and the songs are quite disarming. Adam (Floriano) is awakened and instructed to live and name all the creatures and stay away from the apple tree. He arises reluctantly while asking, "Could I have five minutes more?"

The another creature awakens. This is Eve (Fromson), who exclaims, "Whatever I am, I'm certainly a beautiful one."

Adam is rather vague about naming creatures, coming up with such designations as swimmers, fliers, crawlers, hoppers and growlers. Eve is instinctvely more specific. He designates a creature as "the four-pronged white squirter." She knows it's a cow.

While Adam is off naming creatures (and getting a little privacy) the snake (Turney) shows up, a dapper, persuasive creature who urges Eve to go ahead and have an apple. She does, and manages to rationalize and blame Adam for their expulsion from Eden.

This first act is not only funny but finally rather touching.

The classic Stockton puzzle is broader and gaudier. Turney serves as narrator, with Fromson as a nasty[tempered pricess and Floriano as her lover. He is put on trial for daring to love the princess and his fate will be determined by his choice of opening one of two doors.

Behind one is a murderous tiger, behind the other a beauriful maiden he will wed. The princess knows which is which and will give him a signal. She can't let him die but hates iving him to another woman--"Better dead than wed."

Passionella, Feiffer's sendup of Cinderella, is more broadly funny but is the least satisfying. It also strains the technical facilities of this young company more than the others.

Fromson is Ella, a chimney sweep, who longs to be a big movie star. From out of her TV set comes the voice of her Friendly Neighborhood Godmother to turn her into the gorgeous--and huge-breasted--Passionella. The transformation only happens at night, between the MacNeil-Lehrer Report and Connie Chung's sunrise news. The rest of the time she is grimy Ella.

With Turney again narrating, we hear the story of this poor creature who is not really happy because she is without love. That makes life like a bottle of beer without an opener.

Enter Flip, long-haired rock idol of millions, who might like Passinaella if only she were real.

This new theater group is professional--it pays its actors--and is nonprofit. It doesn't have much money, gauging its budget on 50 percent of a show's potential box office gross and not investing more than that.

Professional performers are important, and it shows in this production. The small budget doesn't affect the first act too much but does show later on, especially in the last act, which needs more technical wizardry than it gets.

Turney and Floriano were both members of the old Cleveland Play House resident company, as was artistic director Tom Fulton, Jr. Fulton has headed two previous professional groups, the Center Rep in the late '70's and the Phoenix Theatre.

Fulton also has had an active hand in the Cleveland Theatre Project in the last couple of years. This is an operation that functions with the blessing of Actors Equity, the actors union, which allows actors to work without salary but share int he profits. The Cleveland Theatre Company is the next step up, salaries being paid under the provisions of Equity's Association of Small Professional Theatres.

Not having a home of its own, the companyh is presenting this and the remainder of its season in rented space at the Jewish Community Center. Two more plays are scheduled--the local premiere of North Shore Fish, by Israel Horovitz, and Anthony Schaeffer's Sleuth. In the latter, women will perform in roles originally done by men.