Backblog – Saturday, May 1st

The theater-intensive week (four shows in eight days) was capped off with an original play, Tremont. Tremont is a Cleveland suburb, and the play was written by a Cleavland-area couple. This was the world premier run, and was taking place at Actors’ Summit Theater, where we had season tickets.

All of the action happens in a bar/pub in Tremont in the late 60s/early 70s. The set was effective, with two doors leading to other rooms (off stage), a full bar, and several tables. The play has a cast of six – the barkeep, a girl he is in love with who waitresses at the bar and is living in a spare room because her house has been broken into, her good-for-nothing brother (in flashbacks and later in the play), a factory worker who is either slightly slow or slightly mad, and an elderly couple who enjoy nitpicking at each other. I was familiar with all of the actors except the barkeep, and they were all excellent. The waitress was played by one of my favorite actors, who is tremendous. It was a very good cast.

The play captured the changing Tremont neighborhood that was going through hard times because the factories were shutting down. The cast was fairly small because those were the only customers who came into the place. The main three characters (the barkeep, waitress and her brother) had good compelling relationships on stage. The elderly couple was mainly comic relief, with some job of exposition on the no-good brother. The factory worker was a lovable, sweet character, and seemed to be there as a foil for the jerk brother to pick on when he shows back up looking for inheritance money.

The show was very solid on the whole. Mer and I both thought it could use a little tightening up in places; this is to be expected from a world premier. The elderly couple’s focus on bodily function humor goes well enough at first, but it is brought back repeatedly, and for too long. The play was a touch long – if ten to fifteen minutes could be cut out, it would be very crisp. It has tremendous promise of being a play that well captures the difficulties of family and community. Even as it was performed, it was still entertaining and thoughtful.