“As the lights dimmed, I couldn’t help but feel a shiver of excitement creep up my spine as I sat in on my first performance on Akron’s campus Friday night. To be perfectly honest, I was a little underwhelmed. It was like watching Running with Scissors, where so much talent was shoved into an incoherent and melodramatic script, not allowing the full potential of its characters to truly blossom.”
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As the lights dimmed, I couldn’t help but feel a shiver of excitement creep up my spine as I sat in on my first performance on Akron’s campus Friday night.

To be perfectly honest, I was a little underwhelmed. It was like watching Running with Scissors, where so much talent was shoved into an incoherent and melodramatic script, not allowing the full potential of its characters to truly blossom.

Under the direction of Sean Cercone, a cast of less than a dozen thespians of vastly varying ages took the stage in Lanford Wilson’s Hot L Baltimore. Set in the 1970s, the play deals with the triumphs and trials of the tenants of the Hotel Baltimore as rumors of the hotel’s closing begin to circulate.

Young Jackie and Jamie (Kimberly Woodworth and Eric Harvey, respectively) get swept up in a land scheme out in Utah with hopes to till the land and start a new life in the fields.

Flashy and flirtatious Suzy (Laura Bertani), ‘tween her many men, must find solace in the arms of a pimp as she struggles with what’s next in life. Paul Granger III is on the hunt for his grandfather whom he’s never met, in hopes the Hotel Baltimore may hold the key to his whereabouts.

The uproarious and often perverse mouth of April Green (Julissa Faw) keeps the tenants rolling and the hotel manager reeling. But in the midst of the turmoil of the ’70s, no one person keeps the hope alive like the free spirit within The Girl.

Call her Billie Jean, call her Martha, call her anytime for a good time, this trick-turning beauty holds the spirit to the Hotel Baltimore.

While the plot may seem intricate and well-woven, some might have trouble finding the motivation behind the separate lives. Many story lines pick up somewhere in the middle and never quite conclude, giving the audience what feels like a single episode in an entire interwoven series of shows.

The abrupt start of the story leaves little or no room for character development. The actors are left struggling to convey the slightest sign of the third dimension in a script that only leaves room for two.

There are moments when dialogue trips over itself, playing at an artistic attempt at chaotic conversation, only leaving the audience confused.

Despite the choppy scriptwriting, the actors do their best to bring the stories within the walls of the Hotel Baltimore alive; two specifically.

April Green’s more-than-slightly off-color banter will have you laughing out loud more than a few times. Faw, a force to be reckoned with for stage presence, commanded the attention of the audience with her hysterical repertoire of sensual anecdotes.

But perhaps the star that shines the brightest was Toni Clair in her portrayal of The Girl. Such a vivacious and animated spirit bubbled out of her performance.

Perhaps the unifying ropes between several of the convoluted and incomplete strings of dialogue were the impassioned and often comical interjections of Clair.

Bringing passion to Granger’s hunt for his grandfather, showing heart for Mr. Morse’s senility and bringing an overall fun and flirtatious attitude to the uptight and gloomy atmosphere of the Hotel Baltimore, Clair lights up the stage from the opening to the curtain call.

While the play itself doesn’t hold a whole lot of relevance, the characters shine through to provide more than mediocre entertainment.

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