It’s not everyday where you walk into a theatre production, not expecting what to see or hear. I mean, I’m no connoisseur of the thespian society, nor do I find myself fit to be writing any sort of review. But as a fan of theatre I thought it would be my duty to give it a callow shot. So as I was eloquently saying, although my stage experience is minuscule in comparison to any average drama going Joe. I’d like to claim that I’ve been to my share of productions and prior to each one, I somewhat knew what I was getting into. I either had a gist of the storyline, had heard a review of the acting or picked up on some reference to the general structure of the work itself.
However, with Dave Razowsky’s “Cross My Heart, Tales of Hope,” I didn’t have the slightest clue of what I was getting into.
The production was an ensemble depicting scenes of life as they unraveled at the most random of times. If you’re expecting to go in and find monologues laced with bourgeoisie Renaissance words, or dialogue dripping in a heavy southern accent, “Cross My Heart” is not your cup of tea (note the British reference). The production places you dead smack in the middle of life’s most unusual, sporadic and moving of moments. Despite not having a singular theme, the work began to patternize. As large of a paradox as it may seem, the unconventional nature of this student production, in an odd way, exploring the theme that life is always observable, even in its rawest of forms.
In physics, they say the natural world eventually leads to disorder, a phenomenon called entropy. Well, although this may seem like a bit of an overanalyzed steaming hunk of rhetoric, this play was an example of just that, entropy. This work successfully molded the entropy into brilliantly written vignettes. The dialogue felt natural, and the acting only enhanced the flowing viscosity of the at many a times, tear jerking moments of laughter.
But I think what surprised me the most in regards to “Cross My Heart,” was the amount of insight it brought into contemporary issues. In one particularly notable sketch actress (Murri brown) plays a pregnant 14 year old girl, whose premature pregnancy is supported by her best friend Maggie (Stephanie Wilborn). Up until this point in the production, the other actors (Helen Brinich-Barnes, Laura Dickinson-Turner, Rex Stinson) have successfully mustered up enough laughs to make Jerry Seinfeld jealous, and then bam, you’re hit with this barrage of wonderfully played out drama that in many respects, blew me away. I think I wouldn’t be the last one in the audience to agree that last work was a powerful note to end on. Another notable point that shouldn’t go unnoticed was the wide variety of transition music chosen in this production. It ranged from dubstep to Coldplay and everything in between, which I felt added to the unique environment this play created.
In hindsight, the dynamic range of acting, the flow of the dialogue and this paradox of a “non structured structure” made “Cross My Hearts: Tales of Hope a night worthy experience. It was something new. It was something odd. It was something I liked very much so.
As cliché as it may sound, bravo. This was not a comedy. This was not a drama. This was life, through the eyes of the audience.
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Review: Cross My Heart
By Jaydeep Bhatia
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March 21, 2012
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