Skinny White Boy in the Heart of Darkness
Cleveland’s monologue operates dramatically on several levels: a spare, modulated delivery combined with cool, lean words underscores the complexity of his theme, a difficult life passage into an eventual hard-won peace. His deadpan wit keeps the material fresh and fast-paced, providing flourishes of comic color in otherwise bleak territory. He doesn’t so much venture into hard times as allude to them: just as he has his audience standing with him and looking at some gaping wound, he changes the subject or finds a comic element.
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Together his writing style, imagery, metaphors, humor, and delivery keep the audience rapt. Only on the thorny issue of his relationship with his wife, and with women in general, does he leave out the telling details, reaching instead for jokes and a glib delivery. Even Woody Allen manages to reveal himself, warts and all, when he portrays his relations with women. But Cleveland does reveal some of himself by providing the details of his struggle to shape his play into something workable. It’s an approach closer to Hemingway than to Allen, but it makes for a successful denouement.
