Listen carefully to the sound of my voice...

Thoughts of roosters are now rampant in your head....

A round and, higher word... "I'm in love with a mesmerist..."

Reviews/Program notes:

NORTHERN OHIO LIVE, November 3-16, by Catherine Podijil

Parlor Games

The first play of the new Brooks series at the Cleveland Play House, John Orlock's Indulgences in the Louisville Harem, puts one in mind of Tennessee Williams done by the Marx Brothers. Or if that's an oversimplification, take indulgence as the key word: indulgence in rich, plumy language; situations that seem to have one meaning, then are whisked around to mean something else; and characters who indulge themelves in fantasies that might be real. The result is wonderfully theatrical, sometimes confusing--and never dull.

We begin with a pair of fading spinster sisters, Florence, the older, tries to make the best of things, including the loss of her hair from a fever. Her sister Viola seems oddly child-like, mashing he peas with gleeful stabs or recounting a dream of getting a wooden leg. A little weird, but predictable genteel Southern melancholy, right? Wrong.

Into their lives comes a catalogue of mail order men, and the mischievous Viola orders one: a Professor Amos Robillet. But when he shows up, he is a mute mesmerist, whose assistant is his voice. Again a predictable situation: a pair of attractive con men, ready to love 'em and fleece 'em? Not exactly. The plot takes more turns before the enigmatic end.

Along the way, there are many diversions (indulgences?) for the audience, especially the astonishing comic spectacle of Wayne S. Turney as the Professor's assistant, who is both ventriloquist and dummy, hypnotist and subject, and rooster. Yes, rooster. But the tone is bnot wholly comic. Human loneliness, suffering, failure to understand, all quiver under the laughter.

The cast is uniformly fine. Turney and Allen Leatherman (as the Professor) perform miracles of timing, yet suggest easily wounded hearts beneath their comic fronts. Catherine Albers makes the awkward, buttoned-up Florence intensely moving; Harper Jane McAdoo as sister Viola is a delicious, demonic child-woman.

The play is a natural for the Brooks, where the direct addresses to the audience and the comic turns capitalize of the theater's intimacy. Director William Rhys emphasizes stylized movement, balancing between extremes of comedy and melancholy. Wayne Merritt's set helps, too--we see its two rooms as one, a visual confusion appropriate to the play.

As a play, it's a diverting intellectual tease, perhaps owing more to Pirandello or Tom Stoppard than ot Tennessee Williams. At the end, Viola takes off a wig; under it, she has short hair like Florence's. Are the two sisters the same person, a lonely, mischievous woman indulging in a fantasy? Or has Viola really escaped, as Florence does at the end of the play, her childhood memories, finally seeing them as the self-mutilating things they really are? No answers. Seeing isn't believing. But entertainment is entertainment, so relax and enjoy a thoroughly professional rids. (It's on until November 9th.)

THE CLEVELAND PERFORMER by T. Michael O'Deaghaidh, October 23

As the curtain figuratively rang down on this modern opus, the people around me enthusiastically turned to one another, and almost with one voice asked, "What did we just see?" and, "Have you any idea what that was all about?" I can't recall the last time I have seen so many stunned, puzzled looks and shaking heads.

As I was exiting the theatre I was preceded by two women. One turned to the other and said: "I'm so sorry, Mary. They usually do such good plays here." Thereupon the other woman replied: "That's alright. Dinner was nice at any rate."

I was, however, absolutely fascinated!

The above has to the the best summation to the performance I could imagine. I must admit before going any further that I did not enjoy the play. I couldn't--I couldn't figure it out. I sat in the theatre for one hundred minutes while four fine actors perorated and gesticulated, and I had no concrete idea of what I saw when I left. I was, however, absolutely fascinated! Let me get the prerequisites out of the way and I'll explain.

The skeleton set designed by Wayne Merritt worked well. There was just enough on stage to suggest a turn of the century home. The lighting was adequate, there being nothing remarkable in the way of lighting effects called for. Costuming was all that is should have been--authentic and proper for the period and characters. The mujsic, what little there was, was well sung, and totally and instantly forgettable.

The direction of Mr. William Rhys was crisp, clean, and concise. The blocking was clean, and the action was well visible to the house. There were no cluttered moments on the stage.

The actors were astounding. Catherine Albers, Harper Jane McAdoo, Allen Leatherman, and Wayne S. Turney turned in fine strong portrayals. They handled the material with amazing insight. I was truly impressed by the duovocular gymnastics of Mr. Turney. The four lively participants in this dramatic noesis were a pleasure to watch. I can find no fault with their work--only strong praise. The production was a marvel, well staged and well acted.

And now for something completely different--the material!

Despite the program notation that Indulgences In The Louisville Harem was penned by a playwright named JOhn Orlock, it is my firm belief that this was a joint effort (pun possibly intended) by Tennessee Williams, Edgar Lee Masters, Luigi Pirandello and Timothy Leary.

There is no consistent style. The play ambles along, moving from a stream of conscious narration, to familiar fourth-wall presentational style, to telling the audience a story to its face. Truly confusing to watch. I compliment the cast for keeping track of the style change.

Now, allow me to plunge ahead into the Stygian murk of the story. There are four characters here. Two spinster sisters, Viola and Florence, are growing older and womewhat crazy together, each blaming the other for the curse of spinsterhood. There are also two gentlemen callers or would-be suitors, who are also well-practiced confidence artists. The two men meet and prey upon the foibles of the two lonely women, but are eventually found out. Beyond this I am absolutely certain of nothing. I am not even sure there are/were two sisters and/or two suitors. I am not even sure there was at least one live sister.

First, we have sister number one, Viola--the lively and battier of the two (maybe) spinsters. She begins by telling the audience that she has another sister Viola. She then relates a strange dream in which a man cuts off her leg with a knife. Red-haired Viola also occasionaloly lapses into periods of infantile prattling (at one point while she mases peas into the tablecloth). Anyhoo, we also have sister number two (maybe), Florence--the prim and proper one. She tells us she has another sister Florence.

Now, after all this explanation with side trips to Memory Lane, the sisters discover a catalogue of eliglble bachelors (we never do find out wehere the catalogue comes from). After some deliberation, they fire off a letter to the mail-order bridegroom firm, and sit back to await the arrival of the reuested merchandise. I trust all this is crystal clear so far. Right!

Shortly afterward the two suitors arrive. Amos Robbilet is a world famous Mesmerist (manipulator of animal magnetism) who has struck Viola's fancy, or whatever, and Winfield Davis is his assistant--and voice. Got that? Amos moves his lips and gesticulates, but all his lines are spoken by Winfield, across the stage (Wayne Turney as Winfield is positively astounding).

Winfield puts a screen around Amos, and then, using a photograph to represent the now "not here" Amos, proposes marriage, in the Amos voice, to Viola. Later, Winfield, this time AS Winfield, proposes to Florence. The object of these proposals is the separation of the sisters from their goods. Still clear on all this?

Shortly before the sisters are to leave on the road to connubial bliss with the gold-dust twins, they (the sisters) discover who the suitors are in reality. They discover this heinous fact by reading the old newspaper lining the bottom of the silverware drawer. At this point the spinsters tell off the suitors, who leave; but, Florence the prim and proper sister, decides to leave Viola and spinsterish insanity in favour of La Dolce Vita. So...after putting a tablecloth on her head, Florence runs off with the ventriloquist act--or does she?

At this juncture, Viola, the wild and crazy one with a tendency toward infantile babbling, gaily trips back on stage looking for the other half of the sister act, and not finding Florence, Viola(?) tells us that she'll wait for them all to come back, all the while fondling a butcher knife. Here, Viola pulls off her red wig and proclaims that she may cut her leg off with the knife she is holding. (See...remember the dream she told us two hours ago?) Since she, Viola (?) has pulled off the red wig, she now looks just like here sister (?) Florence (?). So...we now have two characters who look exactly alike. Which is real? Are they both real? Is one a paranoid schizphrenic? Which is the figment of whose imagination?

Since the style, or compilation of styles, is so much like Spoon Rver Anthology, have we been listening to one, two, or four voices from the grave?

At this point the lights came up and everyone asked everyone else: "That's it?"

Whatever "it" was, the acting was excellent, the technical aspects were well handled, and the whole thing was TOTALLY confusing to the audience. Enjoyable? Now way...but FASCINATING!!!