Reviewed by Elsa Johnson & Victor Lucas
We went to see a play last Tuesday, Two Hearts, a prequel and a promotion for Much Ado About Nothing, Great Lakes Theater’s spring production.
As all good Shakespeare buffs know, Much Ado is dominated by two of its characters, Beatrice and Benedick, who are transparently in love with each other but constantly quarreling. Why, you may ask, do Beatrice and Benedick quarrel? That, dear reader, is the question Two Hearts sets out to answer.
Expect no spoilers here. Suffice to say that Cleveland’s own Playwright / Actor David Hansen provides a richly satisfying answer in terms of story, characters, and motivations, all rendered in iambic pentameter and brought to life by four winning actors, including Hansen himself portraying a plethora of characters. (Lively as things were in front of the miniature proscenium, we’d wager that the action backstage bordered on the heroic and the farcical as Hansen and fellow cast member Annie Hickey performed the numerous lightning costume changes required by their diverse roles.)
Cleveland theater audiences may already be familiar with Emily Purcell and James Rankin who bring the necessary verbal agility and sexual chemistry to the roles of Beatrice and Benedick. Director Lisa Ortenzi heads up the deep production assets – costume design and construction, choreography, fight choreography, to name a few – that add so much to this play.
We saw the opening night of Two Hearts, Tuesday 2/12/13 at The Alcazar in Cleveland Heights.
Double Heart is FREE and is coming to a venue near you. For a list of dates, times and places for this Outreach production as well as information on Much Ado About Nothing and other GLT productions, go to http://greatlakestheater.org.
From Cool Cleveland contributors Elsa Johnson and Victor Lucas. Elsa and Vic are both longtime Clevelanders. Elsa is a landscape designer. She studied ballet as an avocation for 2 decades. Vic has been a dancer and dance teacher for most of his working life, performing in a number of dance companies in NYC and Cleveland. They write about dance as a way to learn more and keep in touch with the dance community. E-mail them at vicnelsaATearthlink.net.