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A lively production of a superb play, a new theatre company's debut in an intriguing performance space: four excellent reasons to wend your way midtown this weekend to E. 40th and St. Clair Ave for the area premiere of "Lonely Planet" at the new Brick Alley Theatre.
Artistic Director Christopher K. Nekvinda has made a savvy choice in mounting Steven Dietz's moving, elliptical drama as the first theatrical outing on the Brick Alley's postage-stamp stage. "Lonely Planet" is a feast of a play -- funny, poetic, and unsentimental -- that also effectively showcases two talented young actors and a smart director.
The plot is deceptively simple. Introvert Jody (Benjamin M. Lesh) runs a map store in a rundown part of town; he has become so fearful of the outside world that he never leaves the shop. His extroverted friend, Carl (Steev'n J. Eyerman) is both his lifeline and goad, bringing tall tales, games, and unwelcome news that Jody doesn't want to acknowledge. Dietz's piece, with many an absurdist nod to Ionesco, is rich with intelligence and theatrical metaphor: the "bad news" comes indirectly, in the form of the abandoned chairs of dead friends, which Carl persistently brings to the shop until the stage is filled to bursting.
The production is well cast. Eyerman is a delightful Carl; he's a tornado of energy, with bantam strut and bleached blond rooster hairdo, shifting accents and personas with every "career" he feigns, from art restorer to auto glass repairman. Lesh's Jody is a fine foil -- quieter, larger, softer, bespectacled, full of silences and effective in his many monologues. The pair make the friendship and its inevitable confrontations credible and engaging.
Director Nekvinda makes excellent use of a challenging layout: the long, deep performance space was once literally an alley between two buildings. Hence, the tiny moveable platform stage has no center views, only two rows of side-view seats. Nevertheless the sightlines are fine; due to Nekvinda's blocking-in-profile, you can always see the actors' faces.
Dietz's play is beautiful and unusual: an "AIDS play" that never once uses the word, that refrains from melodrama and polemic at every turn. Its strategy is subtle and indirect. Instead of lecturing us how we don't face the realities of the plague in our midst, we hear instead about "the Greenland problem", how the maps we use distort our perceptions. By examining a relationship between friends instead of lovers, it's gentle and inclusive, but no less devastating in its implications.
Besides the pleasures of the production, there's another agreeable surprise: discovering the fresh, young, funky-chic energy of the Brick Alley. The venue has an on-site cafe, a packed schedule of folk music, stand-up, and late-night improv, and even pre-show neck massages by its resident Relaxation Therapy guru. It's a welcome addition to Cleveland's performance scene.
Originally published in the Plain Dealer. November, 1998. Reprinted on Aisle Say.
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