'Alter,' Now at Cleveland Public Theatre, Shows a Local Playwright on the Rise

It's always exciting to see an original play hit a local stage, especially when it's written by a person raised in the Northeast Ohio theater community. With Alter by Tania Benites, Cleveland Public Theatre and Teatro Publico de Cleveland join forces to present a work that, while flawed, has a neat twist in the storytelling that captures your imagination.

Maria (Andrea de la Fuente) is a young woman working a telemarketing desk at a company called KaPow! But she has bigger ambitions, so she keeps reading self-help books in a search for her "better" self. Her current book is enacted by a narrator (Alisha Caraballo) who pops up now and then to announce a new chapter along with a couple more tidbits of motivational advice.

The book works so well Maria actually begins seeing her new self, in the form of a Figure (Rajah Morales) who looks like her and is always at the ready to keep Maria going in the most successful direction. But as time passes, and Maria begins to grow as a person, her success is overwhelmed by other changes in her personality.

As Maria deals with her Mom (Sylka Edmonson), the office pest Trisha (Mónica A. Cerpa Zúñiga), and the office stud Steve (Lionel Morales), we see how she learns to handle different vexing relationships and come out ahead. This is particularly true regarding her interactions with her creepy boss Craig (David L. Munnell), who is always looming over her shoulder and giving her wall posters with peppy, motivational sayings—yes, including the "Hang In There!" cat .

But eventually, the Figure that has been providing all the help for Maria begins to change, morphing from a passive assistant to a more aggressive participant in Maria's life. This change makes the play suddenly more fascinating, since we have all witnessed how some people can change remarkably fast based on new input.

This surreal turn opens up many script avenues to pursue, but the play is hampered by the self-help book structure which feels like scaffolding that could be easily eliminated. Without the repeated and predictable appearances by the narrator, which interrupt the flow of the show, playwright Benites would have more room to use her wit and insight to develop a more satisfying conflict and conclusion among her characters, including the "imaginary" one.

While the performance is slowed by too many scenes that are performed without sufficient drive from director Kari Barclay, there are several bright spots. As Maria, de la Fuente captures the youthful hopes of this woman who only wants to improve herself, and Morales is both friendly and frightening as the Figure. It's just a shame there aren't more scenes between them.

Most of the humor is provided by Munnell, who turns Craig into a walking amalgam of the drama queen actors that were popular in comedy films of the 1930s. His limp-wristed, over-the-top channeling of actors such as Franklin Pangborn and Clifton Webb adds a jolt of fun whenever he's on stage.

This full production, performed in English with Spanish supertitles, is a great next step for Teatro Publico de Cleveland (TPC). Launched by Cleveland Public Theatre ten years ago, TPC is a collective of Latino theatre artists who wish to preserve and promote the cultures of Cleveland Latinos.

Whatever the future of Alter looks like, Tania Benites is definitely a playwright to watch for. And we eagerly anticipate the next artistic steps taken by the CPT/TPC partnership.

Alter
Through February 24 at Cleveland Public Theatre, 6415 Detroit Avenue, cptonline.org, 216-631-2727.

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