Press Release

Great Lakes Theater Festival Concludes Inaugural Hanna Theatre Season With A Potent Pair of Classic Comedies

March 6, 2009

GLTF’s Spring Repertory features a world premiere adaptation of The Seagull, a progressive array of social enhancement programming and extraordinary patron access to the artistic process.

CLEVELAND, OH – Great Lakes Theater Festival (GLTF) will conclude its 2008-09 season in the company’s revolutionary new home at the Hanna Theatre, PlayhouseSquare, with a Spring Repertory that features William Shakespeare’s fantastic farce, The Comedy of Errors (Comedy), and Anton Chekhov’s soaring comedy, The Seagull (Seagull). The productions will be performed in rotating repertory March 25 – May 3, 2009. The Spring Repertory features a single company of actors performing two alternating plays on the same stage over six weeks. GLTF’s Producing Artistic Director Charles Fee will direct The Comedy of Errors and Drew Barr will direct The Seagull.

Great Lakes Theater Festival’s inaugural season at the Hanna Theatre is sponsored by National City which is now a part of PNC. The 2008-09 season is presented with additional generous support from The Cleveland Foundation, the Ohio Arts Council and SCK. Great Lakes Theater Festival is generously funded by the citizens of Cuyahoga County through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture. Media sponsors for the Festival’s 47th season are Cleveland Scene, Cleveland Magazine, The Plain Dealer, WCLV 104.9 FM, WCPN 90.3 FM ideastream and WKSU 89.7 FM.

“We are thrilled to be back on the Parker Hannifin Stage where the ‘second act’ of our inaugural season at the Hanna promises to be every bit as rewarding as our ‘first act’,” said GLTF Producing Artistic Director Charles Fee. “In the fall, we unveiled the design of our new home, and our audience’s response to our work – both onstage and surrounding the stage – could not have been more rewarding – confirming our belief that northeast Ohio is hungry for and deeply supportive of innovation. We look forward to building on that positive momentum this spring with two great classic comedies.  I feel very lucky indeed to have my first opportunity to direct The Comedy of Errors while simultaneously producing GLTF’s first Chekhov play during my tenure. I simply couldn’t have asked for a better partner in this endeavor than our longtime artistic company member, Drew Barr, who is returning to work with us again this season as both the director and adapter of our production of The Seagull."

The Festival’s production of The Seagull features a new, original adaptation created by director Drew Barr – who studied Russian at Stanford University. “Every performance of a play is an interpretive act, a translation of written text into the living, breathing present,” said Seagull adapter and director Barr. “One of the things that I’m delighted by, working on The Seagull, is that it’s so fantastically about theatre, and about art and life – and love and life; love and art in life. And I think that it’s a great play for theatre companies to work on, especially a company of actors that’s worked together as long as this one has. There is some instinctual thing that necessitates art in our lives. And certain people end up being the creators of it, and others become the audience for it, but it’s a collaborative relationship and, on one level, the play is investigating aspects of that relationship: as actor and audience, artist and subject, lover and object of desire.”

The Festival’s Spring Repertory commences with Shakespeare’s double dose of laughter, The Comedy of Errors. When two twin brothers and their two twin servants are unexpectedly reunited after three decades apart, the unsuspecting port of Syracuse is torn apart at its seams. With a zany cast of unforgettable characters and a myriad of mistaken identities, Shakespeare’s greatest comedy delivers triumphantly on its famous title.

Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull completes the Festival’s Spring Repertory pairing. A melancholy masterwork by a revolutionary Russian dramatist, The Seagull soars. Generations collide and dreams are deferred in a powerful classic that subtly dissects the affairs of the human heart and the demands of a life in the arts, effortlessly balancing the comic, the lyric and the tragic in a fashion that has become the hallmark of playwright Anton Chekhov’s enduring art.

GLTF’s 2009 Spring Repertory directing corps is comprised of familiar Festival faces. Charles Fee, GLTF’s Producing Artistic Director, will stage William Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors. Fee’s acclaimed productions of Macbeth (2008), Hay Fever (2007), The Importance of Being Earnest (2005), The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) (2004), Hamlet (2003), and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2003) have led to an artistic and financial renaissance for Great Lakes Theater Festival. Drew Barr will complete the Festival’s Spring Repertory directing duo when he helms Chekhov’s The Seagull aftercelebrated GLTF productions of The Crucible (2008), Arsenic and Old Lace (2007), Love’s Labour’s Lost (2006), You Can’t Take It With You (2005), The Taming of the Shrew (2004) and Tartuffe (2003). Barr has directed in all six years of Fee’s tenure.

Great Lakes Theater Festival’s new home at the Hanna Theatre features a visionary “Great Room” inspired design concept that integrates the artist and audience experience into a single unified environment. Hanna patrons select from a variety of seating opportunities including traditional theater seats, club chairs, lounge/bar seats, banquette couches and private box seating. Boasting a fully flexible hydraulic thrust stage, a complete array of state-of-the-art theatrical systems and an intimate 550-seat house arranged in a thrust configuration, the new Hanna is one of the most innovative theaters in the country.

Great Lakes Theater Festival will continue to afford patrons extraordinary access to the artistic process this spring. The new Hanna will open its doors ninety minutes before each performance allowing patrons to observe the complete pre-show preparation process of GLTF’s actors and technical staff. Elements traditionally hidden from audiences such as stage combat rehearsals, dance calls, prop/scenic pre-sets, technical cue rehearsals and actor warm-ups will be conducted in full view of patrons, offering GLTF audiences an amazing glimpse into the theatrical process.

The Festival will also continue its unique series of social enhancement programming at the Hanna during the Spring Repertory. The programming, organized by day of week, is designed to augment the patron experience and highlight the Hanna’s new amenities.

• “Salon Thursdays” will feature an engaging pre-show discussion/presentation beginning one hour before curtain with a Festival artist or local scholar.  (Offered: April 16, 23, 30)
• “Happy Hour Fridays” afford patrons the ability to avoid the commute home from work and back to the theater in time for the show. On “Happy Hour Fridays” audience members are invited to meet at the Hanna’s new Bar and Lounge immediately after work to enjoy a fine assortment of savory hors d’ oeuvres and a complete range of beverages for sale beginning ninety minutes before every performance. (Offered: April 3, 17, 24 & May 1)
• “Night Cap Saturdays” are designed to encourage audience members to stay after the performance and mingle with friends and family in the Hanna’s new Bar and Lounge.  The Hanna’s Bar and Lounge is open until midnight on “Night Cap Saturdays".  (Offered:  April 4, 18, 25 & May 2)
• “Ice Cream Social Sundays” offer patrons the opportunity to enjoy a London theatre tradition brought state-side with family and friends. Audience members are invited to purchase a cool personal ice cream treat before the show or at intermission. Ice cream will be offered at every performance in GLTF’s Fall Repertory, but on “Ice Cream Social Sundays,” the treat is half price. (Offered: April 5, 12, 19, 26 & May 3)

Opening Night performances of The Comedy of Errors (March 28th) and The Seagull (April 11th) have been scheduled for Saturday evenings with preview performances of both productions scheduled for the preceding Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights. The Friday previews of Comedy (March 27th) and Seagull (April 10th) have been newly designated as “Press Previews” – public performances that will also accommodate theater critics and other media representatives. These nights also feature a half-hour pre-show discussion with the director beginning at 6:30 p.m. Curtain times for all evening performances will remain at 7:30 p.m., with a 1:30 p.m. curtain time for Saturday matinees and a 3:00 p.m. curtain time for Sunday matinees. Both productions in GLTF’s Spring Repertory will continue to offer sign-interpreted and audio-described performances as well as the popular Director’s Night and Playnotes pre-show discussion series. (Consult the calendar for complete date and time information.)

Single performance tickets for Great Lakes Theater Festival productions range in price from $15-$89 (Student tickets are $13 – any performance / any seat) and are available by calling (216) 241-6000, by ordering online or by visiting the PlayhouseSquare Ticket Office. Groups of ten or more receive discounts through the PlayhouseSquare Group Sales Department. (Additional handling fees may apply depending on point of purchase.)

Since 1962, Great Lakes Theater Festival has brought the pleasure, power and relevance of classic theater to the widest possible audience in Northern Ohio. The first resident company of PlayhouseSquare, Festival programming reaches 85,000 adults and students annually.

At A Glance: The Comedy of Errors

* Member of Actors’ Equity Association

At A Glance: The Seagull

* Member of Actors’ Equity Association

Reviews: The Comedy of Errors

News Herald
Friday, April 10, 2009
No errors made with Shakespeare’s ‘Comedy’ and GLTF
By Bob Abelman, Correspondent@News-Herald.com

Anyone attending a modern-day production of a William Shakespeare comedy has to wonder what it was like to be in attendance when that play was originally staged and first encountered by audiences.

For the raucous Renaissance crowd at the Globe Theater in 1590s London, the Elizabethan language that is so foreign to us was familiar to the ear, allowing all of Shakespeare’s clever wordplay and brilliant poetry to be immediately accessible. His story lines were fresh, their morals were relevant, and his characters were instantaneously recognizable. Bright costumes and the infusion of then-contemporary music and dance made for a wildly spectacular and marvelously festive mid-afternoon’s entertainment.

“Accessible”, “fresh” and “wildly spectacular” also describe the Great Lakes Theater Festival’s rendition of The Comedy of Errors, currently on stage at PlayhouseSquare’s Hanna Theatre.

Believed to be one of Shakespeare’s earliest plays, The Comedy of Errors is about twin brothers, both named Antipholus, and their twin servants, both named Dromios, who are separated by shipwreck at a very early age. One brother and his servant end up in the city of Ephesus, and the other pair end up in Syracuse. Now adults, the brothers unite during a chance visit to Ephesus, but only after a series of hilarious mishaps ensue due to mistaken identity involving all four men. This is a very funny play filled with wonderful verbal sparring and loads of physical comedy.

Under the superb direction of the GLTF’s Charles Fee, all the humor is brought to the forefront by an extremely talented troupe. The assembled cast speaks the Bard’s dialogue with amazing ease and fluidity. Its rhythm and meaning are beautifully replicated, rendering this play immediately comprehendible for even the most novice theater goers. It is a pleasure to hear for more discerning denizens.

Fee, the master of manipulating contexts to house Shakespeare’s works, has elected to transform the city of Ephesus into a sensuous, contemporary Rio de Janeiro in the midst of a Carnaval celebration. Russell Metheny’s seaside set design beautifully captures the party atmosphere, and set pieces are brought into place by the ensemble, as was done during Shakespeare’s time.

Interestingly, the ensemble consists of seven dancers, led by the agile Terence Greene and Jens Lee, who enter and exit in salsa-saturated and samba-inspired perpetual motion courtesy of brilliant choreographer Martín Cespedes. Infused with steamy Brazilian nightclub music, as well as creative costuming by Charlotte Yetman, this production is brimming with vitality from the opening moments to the play’s conclusion.

Until the very end of the play, the two sets of twins are never on stage at the same time. This allows for GLTF staple Andrew May to play both Antipholus brothers and GLTF neophyte Ian Gould to play both servants. They play them brilliantly. Mays’ well-honed skills and celebrated showmanship are very much on display in this production. He is interesting all the time and manages to milk every syllable and every scenario for all they are worth. Likewise, Ian Gould is a remarkable fool in true Shakespearean fashion. Watching him perform in this production is a treat.

There is no shortage of talented performers on this stage. Especially noteworthy are Lynn Allison as the wife of Antipholus of Ephesus and Gisela Chipe as her sister Luciana. Both are marvelous and deliver contemporary takes on their characters without losing sight of what Shakespeare had intended.

It is hard to imagine a more entertaining performance of this play during Shakespeare’s time. In fact, given this cast and the variety that the state-of-the-art Hanna stage provides, it is easy to imagine that this is the kind of production that Shakespeare would have done.

The Comedy of Errors continues in repertory with Chekhov’s The Seagull through May 3 at PlayhouseSquare’s Hanna Theatre. For tickets, which range from $13 to $67, call 216-241-6000 or buy online.

Read the article: http://www.news-herald.com

West Side Leader
Thursday, April 2, 2009
GLTF’s Comedy of Errors no error, just comedy
By David Ritchey

CLEVELAND — William Shakespeare might not recognize The Comedy of Errors as it is being performed by the Great Lakes Theater Festival in PlayhouseSquare’s Hanna Theatre.

Director Charles Fee moved the setting from England to Ephesus during Carnival (think of Rio during Carnival). The music evokes Carnival in Rio and includes “The Girl From Ipanema” in the famous recording by Gilberto Astrud.

Scenic designer Russell Metheny made excellent use of the Hanna’s new thrust stage and elevator. One part of the set moved up and down on the elevator, while doorways and shop fronts moved about the stage and baked in the hot sun of Ephesus.

Metheny and costume designer Charlotte Yetman should share star billing for this production. They created visual treats, making the production a wonder for the eyes. Yetman made strong use of the color palette to make performers visually jump from Metheny’s settings. She dressed Courtezan (Laura Perrotta) as a dominatrix, with a blond wig, a leather bustier and a riding crop.

When Emila, Abbess at Ephesus (Anne McEvoy), stripped away her nun’s habit to reveal another costume, the audience gasped with pleasure.

The story deals with two sets of identical male twins. One set was born to wealth; the second set was bought at their birth to work as servants for the wealthy twins. The twins were separated in a storm, and one son and one servant and one parent were rescued and sent to one city and the others were sent to another city.

The plot involves both twins (who are dressed alike) and the two servants (who are dressed alike) discovering themselves in the same city. One set is well established in the area. The other set arrived as the play is starting and carry the same names as those who have lived in the city for years.

Antipholus of Ephesus and Antipholus of Syracuse (both played by Andrew May) bring havoc to Ephesus and to the Hanna stage.

The nonsense is doubled when their servants, Dromio of Ephesus and Dromio of Syracuse (both played by Ian Gould), attempt to help their wealthy employers.

Adriana (Lynn Allison), the wife of Antipholus of Ephesus, demands her husband come to dinner. But she gets her husband’s identical twin at the dining table and locks her husband out of the house. Later, when Antipholus of Syracuse attempts to become romantic with Luciana (Gisela Chipe), the sister of Adriana, and Luciana thinks her brother-in-law is being inappropriate, the silliness reaches a higher level.

Of course, by the curtain call, each twin has met the other, and the errors have been corrected.

May shows, once again, that he can play physical comedy and raise nonsense to a laugh-out-loud level. He continues to be one of the best actors in our region.

Allison plays the ever-loving wife in a style reminiscent of Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett. She is not afraid of physical comedy and falls and tumbles with the best clowns in Ohio.

The Comedy of Errors would be no error to watch. Shakespeare would enjoy this updating of one of his first plays. This two-hour traffic on the stage evokes the laughter most of us are desperate for during these depressing times.

The Comedy of Errors will play in the rotating repertory with The Seagull which opens April 8. The shows will continue through May 2. For ticket information, call (216) 241-6000 or buy online.

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.

Read the article: www.akron.com

Cleveland Jewish News
Friday, April 3, 2009
Something for everyone in Comedy of Errors
Fran Heller, Contributing Writer

Last week I saw a riveting production of King Lear on public television.

Later that same week, I saw a beguiling production of The Comedy of Errors at Great Lakes Theater Festival.

The two plays – one, a mature tragedy; the other, an early farce – could not be more different. But such was the genius of Shakespeare that one can find, even in his earliest efforts, some of the same themes that would inform his later works, namely madness, the deception of appearances, and the search for identity.

Credit director Charles Fee, producing artistic director at GLTF, who conjures a Comedy of Errors for all ages to enjoy. Whether you’re looking for deeper meaning or a fun-filled romp, there is something for everyone in this wildly imaginative production. It’s at the Hanna Theatre through May 3.

Accolades start with the outstanding design team, whose efforts magically transport us to another time and place.

Fee sets the comedy in Rio de Janeiro. Russell Metheny’s setting perfectly captures the port city during Carnival, a bacchanalian orgy of celebration, much like Mardi Gras in New Orleans’s Latin Quarter. Rick Martin’s garish lighting embellishes the charms of a place, at once sinful and dangerous, filled with sorcerers and witchcraft, harlots and other bedevilments. Charlotte Yetman’s exotic costumes reflect the unbridled spirit of its inhabitants.

Dance informs much of this lively production. Martín Céspedes’s animated choreography summons an atmosphere of continuous revelry and merrymaking. Stan Kozak’s alluring sea sounds and bossa nova rhythms seduce the viewer throughout.

The improbable plot centers on two pairs of mistaken identities. As a result of a shipwreck, twin brothers Antipholus of Syracuse and Antipholus of Ephesus have been separated since infancy, along with their respective slaves, also twins and both named Dromio.

At age 18, Antipholus of Syracuse implores his father, the merchant Egeon, to search for his missing brother and mother. When Egeon’s one remaining son fails to return after many years, Egeon sets out to find him.

All the action takes place in the city of Ephesus, where Egeon has just been arrested for trespassing and sentenced to death unless he can produce a huge ransom. Upon hearing Egeon’s tale of woe about his lost and riven family, the Duke allows the merchant 24 hours to come up with the money.

Meanwhile, Antipholus from Syracuse and his servant now find themselves in Ephesus, where each of their respective twins resides. What follows is a series of mistaken identities in which error compounds error until all is sorted out, family relationships are restored, and the comedy ends happily.

For director Fee, the play has greater resonance than mere farce. An entire family has been shipwrecked at sea and separated, seemingly never to see each other again. The play explores one of Shakespeare’s constant themes: who we are and the tension between our public mask and our authentic self.

Each twin and his counterpart is played by the same actor. Andrew May is a comic treasure. Dressed in nautical nerd, May readily draws the distinction between the terrified Antipholus of Syracuse and his more arrogant brother of Ephesus.

There is scant poetry in this early comedy, save for Antipholus’s lyrical description at the beginning of the play, in which he compares himself to a drop of water in the ocean that becomes indistinct from all the other droplets. It’s a haunting metaphor for someone who is about to lose his identity in order to find his other half and become a whole.

Ian Gould is over-the-top as the much put-upon twin slaves, Dromio of Syracuse and Dromio of Ephesus. Dromio’s description of the unseen slovenly wench Nell is a masterpiece of comic overstatement.

Most of the characters are one-dimensional in this situation-driven farce. One of the more developed characters is Adriana, wife of Antipholus of Ephesus. A budding feminist, Adriana resents her husband’s freedom (“why should their liberty than ours be more?”); at the same time she respects her place as a dutiful wife. Lynn Allison’s strident Adriana, a cauldron of anger and jealousy, grows wearisome.

Gisela Chipe finds better comic balance as Adriana’s gentler sister Luciana. Other notable performances include David Anthony Smith as the goldsmith Angelo and Anne McEvoy as Emilia, Abbess at Ephesus.

Dudley Swetland is the bereft Egeon, passing out T-shirts emblazoned with pictures of his missing babes and the words “donde esta,” Spanish for “where is.” Aled Davies plays Solinus, Duke of Ephesus, and the quack Dr. Pinch. A whip-thrashing Laura Perrotta is the avenging Courtezan.

With its lack of subtlety, its emphasis on material effects, and a nonstop whirlwind of activity, GLTF’s Comedy of Errors is definitely geared to a younger audience. But if this is what it takes to turn young people on to live theater and to Shakespeare, I will be first in line to champion the company’s unorthodox approach in courting tomorrow’s audiences.

WHAT: The Comedy of Errors, presented in rotating repertory with The Seagull (opening April 8.)
WHERE: Hanna Theatre at PlayhouseSquare
WHEN: Through May 3
TICKETS & INFO: 216-241-6000 or or buy online

Read the article:  http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com

Reviews: The Seagull

The Plain Dealer
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Great Lakes Theater Festival’s The Seagull gets it right
By Tony Brown

Great Lakes Theater Festival should do more Chekhov, just on general principles. Judging from The Seagull, which over the weekend became the first major Chekhov work at Great Lakes since 1993, they should do a lot more of it, so long as Drew Barr is in charge.

Barr, who hasn't directed a bad show since he started at Great Lakes six seasons ago, has apparently read the subtitle. And perhaps because he can read a little Russian, he also apparently gets its significance: "A Comedy."

Because it is about the arts of writing, acting and love, The Seagull is a lighted candle to theater types, who sometimes get their little wings burned.

This is especially true if they monkey with Chekhov’s languidly paced but intricately balanced complexities, as was the case with a sometimes droll but often dull and ultimately silly 2001 production at the Cleveland Play House.

Among the many difficulties is finding the comedy among the many conflicts. Suicide is attempted twice and accomplished once. A baby dies, and the young mom goes mad.

Another young woman, fond of drinking vodka at lunch and wearing black because “I'm in mourning for my life,” makes a bad marriage on purpose.

And the characters opt for art over love, ensuring their unhappiness. But, as one character asks with typical Russian fatalism, what are you going to do? If you decide not to follow the example set by Konstantin, the young writer who shoots himself, all you can do is laugh.

As a student of Russian, Barr walks this tightrope in his adaptation, which he worked out himself using such Internet translators as Babblefish.com. There are plenty of good modern translations – including those by Brian Friel and Tom Stoppard – but Barr wanted something slightly more American, if not too slangily forced, and he succeeds.

As the director, Barr refuses to rush the evening, keeping the comic pacing on target. And he and his team of designers make use of the newly configured Hanna stage to its best effect yet, employing the independent sections of the stage as countryside estate terraces and the motorized fly-loft to raise and lower a symbolic theater curtain.

The cast meshes as if it had been rehearsing for months instead of weeks.

Pale, washed-out and intense, Kevin Crouch’s Konstantin – the young writer – has an immediate and lasting spiritual bond with his aged but life-hungry uncle, played by Dudley Swetland in his meatiest role in years.

Andrew May turns on every ounce of Mr. Smoothie charm as Trigorin, the seasoned novelist who swoops down on an aspiring actress, the innocently alluring Gisela Ch pe. As the fatalistic young Masha, Sara Bruner is simultaneously laughable and pitiable, and she’s matched nearly perfectly by Ian Gould’s Semyon, a bumbling teacher.

Aled Davies is the picture of calm detachment as the local physician, but the broad strokes of Laura Perrotta’s grande-dame portrait of Irina, a famous actress and Konstantin’s hypercritical and parsimonious mother, might be more at home in a broader, less subtle production.

West Side Leader
Thursday, April 16, 2009
GLTF stages ‘astonishing production’ of The Seagull
By David Ritchey

CLEVELAND – Great Lakes Theater Festival (GLTF) is offering an astonishing production of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull. The show is on stage in rotating repertory with The Comedy of Errors through May 3 at the Hanna Theatre.

This script, which is known for its psychological realism, is paired with The Comedy of Errors, and each is a production worth visiting. Together, these productions make the GLTF one of the best production companies in Ohio.

Chekhov was a physician, a short-story writer and a playwright who died of tuberculosis at 44.

Established as a short-story writer, Chekhov wrote The Seagull early in his career. The first production of the play was a disaster. But then Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko and Konstantin Stanislavsky selected The Seagull for production in The Moscow Art Theatre and produced groundbreaking productions of the play.

The GLTF production, under the guidance of director Drew Barr and scenic designer Russell Metheny, paid homage to the work of Danchenko and Stanislavsky. Although the Hanna Theatre has a thrust stage, the actors play the show with a focus on each other.

In the third act (the second act in the GLTF production), a chair is only inches from the edge of the center stage, with its back to the audience. Tables blocked the audience’s view. Yet, in this cluttered, lived-in set, the actors delivered shattering performances.

The characters come from every walk of life in 19th-century Russia. Irina (Laura Perrotta) is a leading actress. She is paired with Boris Trigorin (Andrew May), a successful novelist. Irina’s son Konstantin (Kevin Crouch) struggles without resources to write for the theater and to write magazine stories.

Into this family comes Nina (Gisela Chipe), who steals the heart of Boris. She is much younger than him and completely lacks a focus for her life. As they sit outside the house, he suggests that a good story would deal with a seagull – symbolic of a young woman who gets involved with an older man and is destroyed by that relationship.

Of course, the symbolism is played out in The Seagull.

Interestingly, Chekhov married late in life and spent much of his personal life flitting from affair to affair with young women. How much of The Seagull is autobiographical is speculative.

Chekhov created a play that has long been a favorite of theaters. It demands a well-seasoned, talented cast, director and designers, and this production meets all of those requirements. Here we have an excellent script that is well-acted, directed and designed.

Audiences will have trouble realizing many of the same actors work in both The Seagull and The Comedy of Errors.

May plays two characters in The Comedy of Errors and makes the physical comedy his forte. However, in The Seagull he plays a melancholy, self-indulgent writer who flits from a beautiful established actress to a young, child-like girl.

Perrotta plays a dominatrix in The Comedy of Errors and quickly shifts character types to be a theatrical star and a selfish mother in The Seagull.

The descriptions of performances could go on and on. Each would lay claim to the abilities of each performer and, finally, to the strength of GLTF.

Chekhov wrote The Seagull in three acts, but this production is staged in two acts. The first act runs 90 minutes and the second about 60 minutes. Note that the production starts at 7:30 p.m.

Read the article:  http://www.akron.com

Cleveland Jewish News
Friday, April 17, 2009
Seagull’ at GLTF is ensemble acting at its best
Reviewed by Fran Heller

In Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull, a young writer takes his life, a young woman wearing black is in mourning for her life, and a dying old man yearns for still more life.

Hardly the stuff of humor, yet Chekhov calls his first successful full-length play “a comedy in four acts.”

As a doctor and a writer, Chekhov saw life as comedy and tragedy; he captured the balance between the two with compassion, objectivity, and a delicious sense of irony.

Director Drew Barr conveys that balance in a well-defined production of The Seagull at Great Lakes Theater Festival. The mirror the Russian playwright (and Barr’s faithful adaptation) holds up to human folly is one in which we can also see ourselves.

The Seagull is a consummate ensemble piece. One of the chief pleasures of this production is watching a seasoned troupe, most of whose members have been working together as a repertory company for some time. The result is a finely tuned production in which the sum is even greater than its individual parts.

The play is about many things, including the irrational nature of love. Each character is in love with someone who, in turn, desires someone else.

It is also about the life of the creative artist, the nature of creativity, and a tribute to the theater. “We can’t live without theater,” cries one of the characters.

In the opening moments of the play, a billowing white curtain, like sails on a mast, is raised from stage to fly, then swiftly drops, revealing the entire ensemble poised on the platform. This startling coup de théâtre magically reminds us that we are in a theater and about to see a play. Fitz Patton’s original music and sound design is rapturous.

The first act, about 90 minutes in length, takes some endurance in a drama in which people pretty much sit around and talk, eat, sunbathe, play Lotto, philosophize, or bemoan their unsatisfactory lives. Director Barr’s fluid staging, including the use of aisles and side exits and entrances, keeps the audience engaged.

The convoluted plot centers on a series of romantic triangles.

Famed actress Arkádina (Laura Perrotta) and hack celebrity writer Trigórin (Andrew May) are lovers. Arkádina’s son Konstantín (Kevin Crouch) is a struggling writer who is hopelessly in love with Nina (Gisela Chípe), an aspiring actress. But Nina becomes infatuated with the much older Trigórin, with whom she has a brief and unhappy affair.

These unrequited love interests are replicated in the other characters. The elderly, unmarried Sórin (Dudley Swetland), Arkádina’s older brother, still yearns for love.

Shamráyev (David Anthony Smith), the manager of Sórin’s estate, and his wife Paulína (Lynn Allison), are the ill-matched parents of the dour Másha (Sara M. Bruner).

Like mother, like daughter. While Paulína pines for the local doctor Dorn (Aled Davies), Másha is hopelessly in love with Konstantín. Realizing the futility of her love, Másha marries the whining schoolteacher Medvedénko (Ian Gould), while drowning her unhappiness in snuff and vodka.

All the action takes place at Sórin’s country estate, where everyone has gathered for a summer holiday. Russell Metheny’s minimalist set – a table, some chairs, and an azure blue backdrop for the adjacent lake – is serviceable, aided by Peter West’s mood lighting.

Richly garbed in Kim Krumm Sorenson’s period costumes, Perrotta is every inch the narcissistic and selfish actress Arkádina. A moody, high-strung Crouch brings the emotionally needy Konstantín to life. The complicated and competitive love-hate relationship between mother and son is well-drawn by these two actors.

As Trigórin, May conveys the compulsion of a writer for whom everyone and everything becomes fodder for the next story. The title is drawn from a seagull which Konstantín shoots and then characterizes as his own fate. For Trigórin, the seagull is a subject for a story. The play is based on a real event in Chekhov’s life.

Watching the jealous Arkádina fawn over a reluctant Trigórin, urging him to come away with her, is a comic high point.

Chípe captures the naïve Nina, whose love for Trigórin is really an obsession with the writer’s celebrity status. In the final scene, a half-crazed Nina keeps referring to herself as a seagull.

Smith is a boorish, bellowing Shamráyev, insolent to his superiors and secretly in love with Arkádina.

Gould is the perfect comic foil as the spineless and tiresome schoolteacher Medvedénko, all but ignored by his cruel, sharp-tongued wife Másha and his equally dismissive mother-in-law Paulína, well-drawn by Bruner and Allison respectively. Davies is excellent as the local doctor and resident philosopher Dorn.

Swetland’s depiction of the unkempt, unfulfilled Sórin is unerring. “I want more life,” cries the dying Sórin; it’s a poignant cri de coeur from a man who never enjoyed his life.

Like Shakespeare, Chekhov fully understood human nature. Eternal truths made fresh is one of the many delights of Chekhov and of this satisfying production.

Read the article: http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com

News Herald
Friday, April 17, 2009
Great Lakes production of Chekhov’s Seagull soars
Reviewed by Bob Abelman

Tragicomedy is a high-wire act, a delicate balance of drama and comedy that can easily tilt one way or another upon the currents of a director's whims or an actor's choices. In the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival's rendition of The Seagull, director Drew Barr and his talented troupe find a very comfortable equilibrium.

The setting for Russian playwright Anton Chekhov’s 1895 play is the lakeside estate on which the elderly Sorin (Dudley Swetland) lives with his nephew Konstantin (Kevin Crouch), who is an aspiring playwright with visions of revolutionizing the theater. They are visited during a summer hiatus by Konstantin’s mother, Arkadina (Laura Perrotta), a highly successful, high-maintenance actress, and her lover, Trigorin (Andrew May), a famous novelist.

Other guests include Dorn (Aled Davies), the urbane country doctor; Medvedenko (Ian Gould), a timid schoolteacher; Nina (Gisela Chipe), the beautiful young daughter of a wealthy neighbor from across the lake; and Shamrayev (David Anthony Smith), his wife, Paulina (Lynn Allison) and their perennially depressed daughter, Masha (Sara Bruner), who run Sorin’s farm.

Each character in Chekhov’s play is, essentially, a wounded seagull, desperately wanting to be someone other than who they are and someplace other than where they happen to be, but each is either incapable or unwilling to take flight. Perhaps they are just weighed down by all their psychological baggage, for everyone is desperately in love with someone who is desperately in love with someone else. It is from the dynamic tension generated by these base emotions and lofty aspirations that the human tragedy and ironic comedy of this play arise.

In this GLTF adaptation of Chekhov’s work, the first act lays bare the pervasive haplessness and weighty frustration that consumes these characters. It reveals every character’s misstep and missed opportunity or, in the case of Konstantin’s botched suicide attempt, his misfire.

The second act unfolds 10 years later and demonstrates how time intensifies and solidifies life’s cruel twists and turns, which is best exemplified by Konstantin’s successful effort to end his failure of a life.

Director Barr layers this production with melancholy so gelatinous that these characters appear to be expending all their energy engaging in the simple act of self-expression and coexisting with one another. They so desire to retreat into their own malaise that Barr allows them to turn their backs on one another, as the farm manager Shamrayev does while watching the production of Konstantin’s latest play, or rock back and forth in a dark corner, as Masha does while contemplating her miserable marriage.

All this is complemented by Russell Metheny’s minimalist set design, Peter West’s lighting and Kim Krumm Sorenson’s costumes, which provide enough to give audience members a sense of time and place but not so much as to distract them from this intense play and the fine, refined performances of its actors.

In a complete counterpoint to the brazen performances they deliver in The Comedy of Errors, which runs in repertory with this production, these actors are marvelously muted in their presentation here. Each character is complex and fully developed, and each player takes great pains to bear the full weight of his or her tragedy and squeeze out, with no apparent recognition, his or her more comedic expressions. Some really good acting is performed on this stage.

Over the years, numerous companies have sought to gain new insight or offer new interpretation of Chekhov’s work. This GLTF production of The Seagull, does not. It is pure, streamlined and takes flight.

This is how Chekhov is meant to be played.

The Seagull, continues in repertory with Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors through May 3 at PlayhouseSquare’s Hanna Theatre. For tickets, which range from $13 to $67, call 216-241-6000 or or buy online.

Read the article: http://www.news-herald.com

Scene Magazine
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
THAT GLORIOUS RUSSIAN BIRD Great Lakes presents a soaring Seagull
Reviewed by Keith Joseph

It was especially gratifying for those of us who seek holiness in live theater to encounter the Great Lakes Theater Festival production of Chekhov’s The Seagull on Good Friday, for it stands for far more than a fine realization of a treasured standard. In the spirit of the holy season, it symbolizes a major rebirth for this festival.

The production not only returns the company to the assured grace that seemed to have departed with former artistic director Gerald Freedman. It is also a reminder of the glory that two of the organization’s most cherished peacocks, Laura Perrotta and Andrew May, can achieve.

For the first time in many seasons, they are allowed to display their theatrical plumage as two of literature’s most charming monsters. Perrotta is effortlessly beautiful, whimsically selfish and blissfully destructive as aging diva Arkadina. May has found the ideal vehicle for his matinee-idol persona, deftly emphasizing the dangerous fecklessness that makes his character, the writer Trigorin, so irresistible. Director Drew Barr does an exquisite job of showing how Arkadina and Trigorin wreak their gentle havoc.

If May and Perrotta are the evening’s reigning royalty, Kevin Crouch as the doomed Hamlet stand-in Konstantin is the holy spirit. With his massive forehead and heart-shaped face, he is the perfect mirror to reflect the innocence and despair at the core of all of Chekhov’s works. Looking like Ophelia doing her mad scene, Gisela Chipe gives us a Nina of heartbreaking vulnerability and passion. With every pinch of snuff, Sara M. Bruner vibrantly projects Masha’s wry disillusionment. As Sorin, Great Lakes veteran Dudley Swetland has rarely been so alive and affecting.

Confession: I’ve long waged moral battle with Chekhov, knowing I was supposed to worship him but not understanding why. To my left during the Great Lakes performance sat a relative newcomer to the glorious Russian bird and to my right a wise professional who knows every fiber of Chekhovian cloth.

We all left the theater in a state of jubilation. I discovered that Chekhov, instead of being a spinner of depressing lugubriousness, was in reality the progenitor of the poetic melancholy that led to the exquisite and gently insightful plays of Tennessee Williams. Barr’s lucid direction was the lightning that illuminated this revelation.

My companion to the right was in raptures that she had finally found, in her own backyard, an ensemble worthy of any British or Canadian theater festival. And my other companion heard compassionate music in the production’s subtle shading of feelings and motivations.

Although Great Lakes has already staged three productions in the refurbished Hanna Theater, its Seagull proves to be the true debut of this magnificent space. On its arena stage, we’re able to fully experience the incongruity of Arkadina’s glamour and stinginess and Konstanin’s contained emotional collapse as Nina tells him of her love for Trigorin.

With the world in turmoil, it is heartening to know that great works, when done with perception, can still light a path to the human soul.

Read the article:  http://www.clevescene.com

Photos: The Comedy of Errors

Great Lakes Theater Festival conjures a Carnival atmosphere in its Rio-infused production of Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors at the Hanna Theatre, PlayhouseSquare. The Comedy of Errors runs in rotating repertory with Chekhov’s soaring comedy The Seagull through May 3. Photography by Roger Mastroianni.
Luciana (played by Gisela Chípe) lights up the stage as ensemble members Terrence Green (left) and Jens Lee (right) watch on in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s Rio-infused production of Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors at the Hanna Theatre, PlayhouseSquare. The Comedy of Errors runs in rotating repertory with Chekhov’s soaring comedy The Seagull through May 3. Photography by Roger Mastroianni.
A motley crew makes merry (from left to right: David Anthony Smith as Angelo, Darius Stubbs as Balthasar and Andrew May as Antipholus) in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s Rio-infused production of Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors at the Hanna Theatre, PlayhouseSquare. The Comedy of Errors runs in rotating repertory with Chekhov’s soaring comedy The Seagull through May 3. Photography by Roger Mastroianni.
The Missus (actor Lynn Allison as Adriana) and the mistress (actor Laura Perrotta as the Courtezan) square off in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s Rio-infused production of Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors at the Hanna Theatre, PlayhouseSquare. The Comedy of Errors runs in rotating repertory with Chekhov’s soaring comedy The Seagull through May 3. Photography by Roger Mastroianni.
Actor Lynn Allison (as Adriana, left) and Aled Davies (as Solinus) take center stage in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s Rio-infused production of Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors at the Hanna Theatre, PlayhouseSquare. The Comedy of Errors runs in rotating repertory with Chekhov’s soaring comedy The Seagull through May 3. Photography by Roger Mastroianni.
Actor Andrew May (as Antipholus, above) and Ian Gould (as Dromio, below) comprise a perfect comic pair in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s Rio-infused production of Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors at the Hanna Theatre, PlayhouseSquare. The Comedy of Errors runs in rotating repertory with Chekhov’s soaring comedy The Seagull through May 3. Photography by Roger Mastroianni.

Photos: The Seagull

Actors Laura Perrotta (left) and Andrew May (right) take center stage as Arkádina and Trigórin respectively in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s production of Chekhov’s soaring classic The Seagull at the Hanna Theatre, PlayhouseSquare. The Seagull runs in rotating repertory with Shakespeare’s double dose of laughter The Comedy of Errors through May 3. Photography by Roger Mastroianni.
Actors Andrew May (left) and Laura Perrotta (right) portray Trigórin and Arkádina respectively in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s production of Chekhov’s soaring classic The Seagull at the Hanna Theatre, PlayhouseSquare. The Seagull runs in rotating repertory with Shakespeare’s double dose of laughter The Comedy of Errors through May 3. Photography by Roger Mastroianni.
Actors Gisela Chípe (front right) and Kevin Crouch (back left) portray Nína and Tréplev respectively in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s production of Chekhov’s soaring classic The Seagull at the Hanna Theatre, PlayhouseSquare. The Seagull runs in rotating repertory with Shakespeare’s double dose of laughter The Comedy of Errors through May 3. Photography by Roger Mastroianni.
Actor Laura Perrotta portrays Arkádina in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s production of Chekhov’s soaring classic The Seagull at the Hanna Theatre, PlayhouseSquare. The Seagull runs in rotating repertory with Shakespeare’s double dose of laughter The Comedy of Errors through May 3. Photography by Roger Mastroianni.		Actor Gisela Chípe takes center stage as Nína in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s production of Chekhov’s soaring classic The Seagull at the Hanna Theatre, PlayhouseSquare. The Seagull runs in rotating repertory with Shakespeare’s double dose of laughter The Comedy of Errors through May 3. Photography by Roger Mastroianni.
Actor Kevin Crouch portrays Tréplev in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s production of Chekhov’s soaring classic The Seagull at the Hanna Theatre, PlayhouseSquare. The Seagull runs in rotating repertory with Shakespeare’s double dose of laughter The Comedy of Errors through May 3. Photography by Roger Mastroianni.		A mother (actor Laura Perrotta as Arkádina) embraces her son (actor Kevin Crouch as Tréplev) in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s production of Chekhov’s soaring classic The Seagull at the Hanna Theatre, PlayhouseSquare.  The Seagull runs in rotating repertory with Shakespeare’s double dose of laughter The Comedy of Errors through May 3. Photography by Roger Mastroianni.
Actors Dudley Swetland (as Sórin, left) and Kevin Crouch (as Tréplev, right) share a tender moment in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s production of Chekhov’s soaring classic The Seagull at the Hanna Theatre, PlayhouseSquare. The Seagull runs in rotating repertory with Shakespeare’s double dose of laughter The Comedy of Errors through May 3. Photography by Roger Mastroianni.