Voice Over
The acting, by the way, just happens to be sublime, with what is sure to be career making performance by a young actress named Kymberly Mellen… Mellen's unabashed physical lushness, combined with her ability to suggest Cleo's quick mind, prickly pride and fierce sense of self, help create a character completely out of the stereotype. Her face -- all quivering lips, expressive eyebrows, sculpted profile -- appears alternately delicate and silent-film-style-grand. She glows… It's doubtful even the Group Theatre itself did this play better. (Hedy Weiss - Chicago Sun-Times) Cleo Singer is an idealized Odets love object, all curves and come-ons, masking her unglamorous home life with dreams of becoming a dancer…. Mellen's Cleo is the ringer, just right, a touching and witty dumb-smart creation that proves certain stereotypes can be made fresh. (Michael Phillips - Chicago Tribune) Although cast with returning Writers' principals and experienced Chicago talent, it is without question that this show belongs to Kymberly Mellen. Just saucy enough to be all together enchanting, her Cleo is irresistible. She owns her audience from the moment she steps on the stage and finds every nuance of Odets' difficult intent. We find it completely unremarkable that both Stark and Prince would risk everything to own her. Given her absolute charm and utterly lovable presence, what else could they do? (Emily Lee - Gay Chicago Magazine) Kymberly Mellen as Cleo opens a window of truth on the play. While her portrayal is a carefully styled construction that nearly parodies the Judy Holiday clueless ingenue, she gives it such honesty and passion that Cleo becomes more "real" than the supposedly realistic Stark. Ingeniously exploiting a 1930s type, she makes the now strained conventions of Odets' poetic realism feel natural -- this Cleo could not exist anywhere but in a Depression-era play. By the end, when Odets makes it clear that only Cleo has the potential for liberation, and only through herself, Mellen has claimed the play as her own. She even delivers Odets' almost laughably sentimental plea -- "Don't you think there's a world of joyful men and women? Must all men live afraid to laugh and sing?" -- with enough heart to bring a lump to your throat. (Justin Hayford - Chicago Reader) William Brown's staging of the Odets play about lust and guilt in a dentist's office showcased a remarkable turn by Kymberly Mellen as Cleo, a dental assistant with big dreams, for whom rinsing and spitting is simply not enough. (Top Ten of 2002 - Michael Phillips - Chicago Tribune) As the object of Stark's affection, Kymberly Mellen is a supple, Betty Grable pin-up with a tacky New Yawk accent and a surprising amount of self-aware intelligence. (Nina Metz - The Chicago Reader)
e-mail:kvmellen@hotmail.com
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KYMBERLY MELLEN
