You see, Emily is a computer programmer, who’s created a dandy ID program for her local library. The library hasn’t paid her final installment of $23.17, but when she tries to collect this trifling sum, the world around her goes crazy! Conspiracies abound, everywhere, involving seemingly everyone she knows.
This is the premise of T.I.D.Y. by Cleveland Heights playwright Eric Coble, being given its world premiere production at the Studio Theater of Beck Center in Lakewood. The play is especially timely in today’s goofy world, and the production is excellent. Coble writes about really zany things which are yet close enough to reality that it's easy to believe they could happen just that way! He stretches absurd concepts way beyond easy acceptance. For instance, he says this show is about 'personal and political responsibility'. Okay. It's also about a huge conspiracy, and the paranoia that goes with such things.
Director Roger Truesdell is an experienced hand at bringing Coble’s biting wit and over-the-top characters to life, and while Friday evening’s performance was a teensy bit untidy here and there, relative to timing, etc., these minor glitches will have worked themselves out by the time you read this. Although T.I.D.Y seems to take place during the Holiday season, it isn’t necessarily a holiday-oriented play. But don’t let that stop you from making reservations to see it. In fact, you should do this immediately, because it should easily sell out before the final scheduled performance on December 18.
Sarah Morton is just terrific—and so believable!—as Emily. She starts out as the confident programmer, wanders into bewilderment when with her best friend Maxine, impatience with her mother Sylvia, confusion when near the enigmatic Dyna, hesitant with her soon-to-be-ex-husband Tom, and demonstrates myriad emotions with Mr. Casolaro of the library, or the ice cream vendor. She is on-stage for nearly every moment of the play, drawing an extra well-deserved bow from the appreciative audience.
Alison Garrigan as Maxine was sometimes hard to understand, her Texas accent and usual location on a balcony making the words difficult to comprehend. Fortunately, her attitude and body English made up for that, allowing the audience to know exactly what she thought—or meant—at all times. Tracey Field’s Dyna was indeed the dynamo for whom she was named. She was especially fun in the paint-battle scene. Sylvia, or Mom, in the person of Rhoda Rosen was wonderfully adept in switching from the usual dithery Mom to her opposite evil twin.
Kevin Joseph Kelly was hilarious as Mr.Casolaro of the library, and the opening scene between him and Emily was one that should be preserved for the ages. In the second act, he does a brief bit as an ice cream vendor, another gem. He was also excellent in a couple of even smaller, un-named bits. Nickolas Koesters illuminated the typical sports-nut husband role in absolutely marvelous fashion. His secondary, un-named part was also well done.
The set design by Don McBride is excellent as well as functional. The huge paper shredders were an ingenious addition, especially as they kept burping out ever-larger quantities of their main product. Laurel Held-Posey’s costumes were colorful and versatile, especially in the final scene. Props by Sharon Epstein, lighting by Jeff Lockshine and sound by Richard Ingraham added greatly to the production, as did the original music composed and performed by Aryavarta Kumar.
Because of the conspiracy theme of the play, reviewers were asked not to divulge the plot. Suffice it to say it’s funny, raucous, and very believable! There's a quote from Robert Anton Wilson in the program: "Anyone in the United States today who isn't paranoid must be crazy." Indeed. But that doesn’t mean you can’t still laugh at the improbability of some of the everyday conspiracies we’ve all come to know and love.
T.I.D.Y. will be at the Studio Theater of Beck Center through December 18. For information or tickets, call (216) 521-2540 or visit the web-site: http://www.beckcenter.org
From Cool Cleveland contributor Kelly Ferjutz artswriterATadelphia.net
(:divend:)