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The darkness that pervades Joseph McDonough's melancholic new play "Stone My Heart," which opened Thursday night at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, comes not so much from its setting in a Chicago morgue but from the living within it.
McDonough, a Cincinnati playwright of some note who has managed to have yet another new play premiering at the Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati later this month, has fashioned this drama after Shakespeare's tragedy "Othello."
The danger of such an idea is that too close of an emulation of the original invites comparison. Nothing wrong with writing a play about jealousy and ambition. These universal themes are very much with us.
The problem with this play, this year's winner of the Mickey Kaplan New American Play Prize given annually at the Mount Adams theater, is that McDonough hasn't kept his literary distance. The parallels both in style and performance creep too close. It is a distraction. .
Initially, we are quite caught up in the shy, inhibited medical examiner Robby's (Todd Lawson) inability to express his love for Jessica (Lanie MacEwan). She is the Desdemona of the piece, albeit a little too predictably dressed all in white by costume designer Claudia Stephens.
Meanwhile, there is the cynical, blunt speaking, often perversely comic Terrence (Sean Haberle) making with maniacal eyes that might be just as at home in the sockets of Dracula's minion Renfield).
Terrence, read Iago, sulks in the shadows of Joseph P. Tilford's black-tiled morgue with its black enameled, but also transparent doors. Occasionally, they are opened to reveal the disturbing gray corpses designed by Michael Meyer.
Terrence, although denying his foul mood to Jessica, is burned up with ambition. He has been denied promotion to coroner upon the death of Jessica' s father.
Terrence's revenge leads to plotting. It ensnares poor Robby as Terrence seeks to destroy Jessica's lover Marcus (Kevyn Morrow) who was tapped over Terrence for the coroner position.
Terrence preys upon Marcus' jealousy by making the alcoholic and professionally inadequate Zach (Tim Altmeyer) suspect of having an affair with Jessica.
All of this conniving may have worked as a potboiler, but McDonough lets us down in the key character of Marcus.
Marcus is not developed enough to underscore the man's immaturity, fears and onslaughts of prejudice experienced, not as a Moor, but as an African-American.
There is a long story from Marcus telling about his father's life. The story is supposed to bring some perspective or link to Marcus. More is needed. Here is a man, alleged to be violent in the script, but in Morrow's remote performance we never experience it.
In addition, Marcus is further neutralized through the failure of having any big dramatic moments with Jessica or Terrence. The script and the detached performance keep needed passions at bay.
The writing is mixed. In addition to plentiful vulgarity and colloquialisms like "dude," McDonough also inserts Shakespearean- sounding soliloquies and asides. It doesn't help us forget Shakespeare with lines like "Oh, the tyranny of puny hope."
Stern aids and abets the stylistic distractions by turning actors heads into cameo portraits. Under spotlights, framing just their heads, actors utter more florid dialogue.
Still the wonderfully villainous, strangely sexual, performance from Haberle stands out. He is, of course, not really playing Terrence, but a fugitive Iago on the lam from "Othello."
STONE MY HEART, Thursday at the Cincinnati Playhouse, Mount Adams. Playdates: Tuesdays-Sundays through April 30, $41.50-$50.50; (513) 421-3888.
(C) 2006 The Cincinnati Post. via ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved
