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Cleveland native’s play targets ‘Coming of Age’
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Reviewed by FRAN HELLER, Contributing Writer
Kitty Dubin’s comedy-drama “Coming of Age” is the perfect anodyne for aging baby boomers. Dubin, who hails from Cleveland, admits that turning 60 was a strong motivation for her writing the play.
“Coming of Age” deals with boomers coping with all the issues of growing older, such as the empty nest, retirement, loss of parents, and the physical toll of their own aging.
The world première of “Coming of Age” was recently presented at the Jewish Ensemble Theatre (JET) in West Bloomfield, Mich.
The story centers on Sarah and Ben, both in their late 50s, and Sarah’s best friend and college roommate Holly, whose husband Eric has recently died.
Every summer, the two couples would spend a week together at Sarah and Ben’s summer cottage on Lake Michigan. This is the first summer that Holly is without her husband. The play traces three years of these sojourns, beginning with the grieving widow, followed by Holly’s newfound love affair with a house painter/artist 15 years her junior, and finally Holly’s coming to terms with age.
The play is not just about growing older, but about growing up.
Sarah’s marriage to Ben, a college professor, is rock solid. But her obsession with anything to do with aging threatens the relationship.
While Ben appears to take getting older in stride, he spends time reading the obituaries, AARP magazine, and sorting his pills in a plastic pill divider. The university where Ben teaches is putting pressure on him to take early retirement. Ben considers it, but his wife won’t hear of it. Retirement means you’re old, she thinks.
Vanity is not one of Holly’s problems. But an unhappy marriage to a philandering and controlling husband has left the dependent wife suddenly adrift with having to pay the bills and fill her own gas tank. Little wonder that the needy Holly falls for a leech in a whirlwind affair that leaves her walking on cloud nine until it rains.
“Coming of Age” does not break any new ground. What it does do is recycle these universal issues in a fresh, funny and entirely human way. It’s a congenial comedy that hits home for all ages.
Dubin’s sharp ear for dialogue mirrors the way people speak. Throughout the play, I found myself nodding in agreement with what the characters were saying and feeling.
For example, in the opening scene, Sarah, facing the audience, is seen smoothing out her facial wrinkles in front of an imaginary mirror, a ritual which had this reporter smiling in commiseration!
The only criticism I have is that on occasion, the dialogue comes off sounding like a therapy session (Dubin worked as a psychotherapist for 26 years) rather than a couple in crisis.
Gillian Eaton’s brisk direction and a first-rate cast of seasoned Equity actors, including Naz Edwards, Mark Rademacher, Babs George and Thomas Hoagland, make for a successful production.
“It is really about accepting that you’re getting older,” says the affable playwright in a CJN telephone interview from her Birmingham, Mich., home. “Anything in life that is difficult to accept, one doesn’t just accept it. You have to go through a period of resistance and denial. Sarah is the ultimate in denial, until she can deny no longer.”
Dubin loves writing comedy; it’s how she views the world, she says. She also sees humor as a big coping mechanism for everything in life.
While Dubin denies that her plays are autobiographical, she does concede that pieces of her can be found in all her characters. Like Sarah and Ben, the playwright and her husband have a long-term marriage. When Ben describes how you have to tend the fire and you can’t let the last spark go out, that’s very autobiographical, adds Dubin.
Most gratifying to Dubin about this play was observing how much people enjoyed it. Instead of watching the play, Dubin watched the audience, and it was such a rush, she says, to see people laugh and how moved they were, even to tears.
Dubin has written about 21 full-length and one-act plays. Virtually all of her work has been produced.
Currently on a roll, her prize-winning, one-act “Mimi and Me,” about an encounter between an elderly nursing-home resident and a young social worker, is being performed nationwide as part of a traveling festival of one-acts by six female playwrights called “Six Women@60 in 2006.” The character of Mimi was modeled after Dubin’s paternal Aunt Boodie (Bertha Gross of Cleveland), who died last year at age 98.
Dubin has just been named playwright-in-residence at JET, where five of her plays, four of them world premières, have been produced. It’s a theater that has nurtured her playwriting development and a place Dubin calls her “theater home.”
At the time of our interview, Dubin was scheduled to leave the following week for the Samuel French One-Act Playwriting Competition in New York City. Only theaters in New York which have produced a playwright’s work are eligible to submit to the competition, she explains.
Love Creek Theatre, off-off-Broadway, produced an evening of six of Dubin’s one-acts last year. The theater submitted three of Dubin’s one-acts, and two were accepted in the competition.
Dubin has been an adjunct professor of theater at Oakland University in Rochester, Mich., since 1997. “Teaching is my true passion,” she says.
She and her husband Larry, a law professor at the University of Detroit Mercy, have been married 37 years. Their son Nick, 29, is pursuing a doctoral degree in psychology.
A 1963 graduate of Shaker Heights High School, Dubin earned her bachelor’s degree in English from Case Western Reserve University in 1967, where she graduated magna cum laude. A master’s degree in English from Wayne State University in 1971 and a master’s degree in guidance and counseling from Oakland University in 1975 followed.
Dubin is the daughter of the late Jane and Sydney Solomon of Shaker Heights. Her sister Mary Solomon resides in Shaker Heights.
Like her play, Dubin, 61, acknowledges that she has also come of age as a playwright, a woman, and a human being. “This has been the best year of my life,” she enthuses.
Kitty Dubin’s comedy-drama “Coming of Age” is the perfect anodyne for aging baby boomers. Dubin, who hails from Cleveland, admits that turning 60 was a strong motivation for her writing the play.
“Coming of Age” deals with boomers coping with all the issues of growing older, such as the empty nest, retirement, loss of parents, and the physical toll of their own aging.
The world première of “Coming of Age” was recently presented at the Jewish Ensemble Theatre (JET) in West Bloomfield, Mich.
The story centers on Sarah and Ben, both in their late 50s, and Sarah’s best friend and college roommate Holly, whose husband Eric has recently died.
Every summer, the two couples would spend a week together at Sarah and Ben’s summer cottage on Lake Michigan. This is the first summer that Holly is without her husband. The play traces three years of these sojourns, beginning with the grieving widow, followed by Holly’s newfound love affair with a house painter/artist 15 years her junior, and finally Holly’s coming to terms with age.
The play is not just about growing older, but about growing up.
Sarah’s marriage to Ben, a college professor, is rock solid. But her obsession with anything to do with aging threatens the relationship.
While Ben appears to take getting older in stride, he spends time reading the obituaries, AARP magazine, and sorting his pills in a plastic pill divider. The university where Ben teaches is putting pressure on him to take early retirement. Ben considers it, but his wife won’t hear of it. Retirement means you’re old, she thinks.
Vanity is not one of Holly’s problems. But an unhappy marriage to a philandering and controlling husband has left the dependent wife suddenly adrift with having to pay the bills and fill her own gas tank. Little wonder that the needy Holly falls for a leech in a whirlwind affair that leaves her walking on cloud nine until it rains.
“Coming of Age” does not break any new ground. What it does do is recycle these universal issues in a fresh, funny and entirely human way. It’s a congenial comedy that hits home for all ages.
Dubin’s sharp ear for dialogue mirrors the way people speak. Throughout the play, I found myself nodding in agreement with what the characters were saying and feeling.
For example, in the opening scene, Sarah, facing the audience, is seen smoothing out her facial wrinkles in front of an imaginary mirror, a ritual which had this reporter smiling in commiseration!
The only criticism I have is that on occasion, the dialogue comes off sounding like a therapy session (Dubin worked as a psychotherapist for 26 years) rather than a couple in crisis.
Gillian Eaton’s brisk direction and a first-rate cast of seasoned Equity actors, including Naz Edwards, Mark Rademacher, Babs George and Thomas Hoagland, make for a successful production.
“It is really about accepting that you’re getting older,” says the affable playwright in a CJN telephone interview from her Birmingham, Mich., home. “Anything in life that is difficult to accept, one doesn’t just accept it. You have to go through a period of resistance and denial. Sarah is the ultimate in denial, until she can deny no longer.”
Dubin loves writing comedy; it’s how she views the world, she says. She also sees humor as a big coping mechanism for everything in life.
While Dubin denies that her plays are autobiographical, she does concede that pieces of her can be found in all her characters. Like Sarah and Ben, the playwright and her husband have a long-term marriage. When Ben describes how you have to tend the fire and you can’t let the last spark go out, that’s very autobiographical, adds Dubin.
Most gratifying to Dubin about this play was observing how much people enjoyed it. Instead of watching the play, Dubin watched the audience, and it was such a rush, she says, to see people laugh and how moved they were, even to tears.
Dubin has written about 21 full-length and one-act plays. Virtually all of her work has been produced.
Currently on a roll, her prize-winning, one-act “Mimi and Me,” about an encounter between an elderly nursing-home resident and a young social worker, is being performed nationwide as part of a traveling festival of one-acts by six female playwrights called “Six Women@60 in 2006.” The character of Mimi was modeled after Dubin’s paternal Aunt Boodie (Bertha Gross of Cleveland), who died last year at age 98.
Dubin has just been named playwright-in-residence at JET, where five of her plays, four of them world premières, have been produced. It’s a theater that has nurtured her playwriting development and a place Dubin calls her “theater home.”
At the time of our interview, Dubin was scheduled to leave the following week for the Samuel French One-Act Playwriting Competition in New York City. Only theaters in New York which have produced a playwright’s work are eligible to submit to the competition, she explains.
Love Creek Theatre, off-off-Broadway, produced an evening of six of Dubin’s one-acts last year. The theater submitted three of Dubin’s one-acts, and two were accepted in the competition.
Dubin has been an adjunct professor of theater at Oakland University in Rochester, Mich., since 1997. “Teaching is my true passion,” she says.
She and her husband Larry, a law professor at the University of Detroit Mercy, have been married 37 years. Their son Nick, 29, is pursuing a doctoral degree in psychology.
A 1963 graduate of Shaker Heights High School, Dubin earned her bachelor’s degree in English from Case Western Reserve University in 1967, where she graduated magna cum laude. A master’s degree in English from Wayne State University in 1971 and a master’s degree in guidance and counseling from Oakland University in 1975 followed.
Dubin is the daughter of the late Jane and Sydney Solomon of Shaker Heights. Her sister Mary Solomon resides in Shaker Heights.
Like her play, Dubin, 61, acknowledges that she has also come of age as a playwright, a woman, and a human being. “This has been the best year of my life,” she enthuses.
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