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| Jake Cole and Blake Morris in a Daily Eastern News photo. |
By Dan Hagen
Eastern Illinois University’s “Lonely Planet” is a showcase for the considerable and well-matched talents of two actors, Jake Cole and Blake Morris, who play urban gay men at the height of the AIDS epidemic.
Steven Dietz’s play, ably directly by Kevin Doolen, is about how a person should respond to a crisis that threatens all around him — by hiding in safety, or by reaching out in compassion. The point is made with clever byplay and symbolism — a map shop as a metaphor of an orderly microcosm, chairs as the ghostly remnants of the people who sat in them.
As Carl, Cole blows through Morris’s sedate map shop like a whirlwind, literally smashing the door open at one point. He feints, charms and cajoles, and even the breezy lies he tells about his occupation turn out to have a poignant point.
As Jody, Morris hides his fear beneath an engagingly winsome surface. His soliloquies are fascinating, whether he’s cheerfully explaining the nuances of cartography or revealing his anguish in dreams. And no matter how close you sit to the stage, you won’t catch a single emotionally false note in either actor.
The heavy topic is illuminated by plenty of lighter moments. An extended stage combat scene, for which the actors were professionally trained, is a fluid marvel of mock derring-do.
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