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Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2008 11:15:11 -0800
From: Jim Wagner jrwagner@rcn.com
Subject: 'Quick Take' of Hovey drama

Quick Take: Review by Jim Wagner

KEELY AND DU, by Jane Martin
Performances through March 15
Presented by Hovey Players, Waltham MA
Directed by Bill Doscher
Co-Producers: Jessie Olson & Kristin Hughes
Stage Manager: Mark Sickler
Cast: Philana Gnatowski, Ann Carpenter, Larry Lickteig, Robin Gabrielli

The judges who award outstanding performances around Boston need to get to Waltham by March 15 to see the Hovey Players' production of KEELY AND DU by Jane Martin. This drama with four actors is directed by Bill Doscher. Keely (Philana Gnatowski), a young woman pregnant by rape, is held captive by a militant anti-abortion cadre insistent that she deliver (and love) the fetus Keely is determined to abort. Du (Ann Carpenter), the group's grandmotherly nurse, is assigned to care for Keely in a locked basement for several months. The play is about their changing relationship, and both actresses hold the stage firmly the entire drama. Walter (Larry Lickteig), the zealous minister who leads the anti-abortionists, frequently visits Keely's prison to persuade her to follow their plan. They even bring in repentant rapist Cole (Robin Gabrielli), Keely's alcoholic ex-husband, who begs forgiveness.

These four actors are terrific, especially young Philana Gnatowski and stage veteran Ann Carpenter in their demanding, leading roles. Larry Lickteig and Robin Gabrielli make their unsympathetic characters fully understandable. All are convincing. In a program note Bill Doscher, whose directing awards include musical shows, thanks the Hovey Players for letting him do "serious stuff." Audiences and judges should be grateful as well.

THE Marathon
12 May 2008

SICK DAY

By "George Spelvin"
Sponsored by Rough & Tumble Theatre
Directed by Dan Milstein

If you know Rough & Tumble, you know they work together on ideas, until no one remembers who first thought up what line, what gesture, what pause. That's why this is credited to "George Spelvin" --- the tip-off name assigned to actors doing multiple walk-ons, or trying to hide from Equity their moonlighting for under-scale.
And if you know Rough & Tumble you would have recognized the DILBERT-like office in which Irene Daly and Chris Cook worked next to one another without a reason ever to speak --- professionally or personally --- until she found him (chased him to?) a park bench for lunch. George Saulnier III and Kristin Baker dropped briefly by, but as Daly narrated this maybe-beginning-love-story, it was less a funny DILBERT fantasy and felt, instead, like a heart-warming slice of romance out of PEANUTS.
But, if you know Rough & Tumble, you know what I mean, right?

CARDS

By Theresa Rebeck
Sponsored by Lyruc Stage Company of Boston, Inc.
Directed by Spiro Veloudos

Two people were playing cards, with a deck made out of three different decks; and there was a lot of trash including apparently a dead body in the background. One (Sarah Newhouse) knew the deck so well she identified cards not as what they look like but what they "were". The other (Elizabeth Hayes) didn't even know they were playing Gin.
Spiro Veloudos directed this enigmatic (okay, incomprehensible) pretense of a play, which may be a scene from some larger sci-fi fiasco. The actresses did the best they could, under the circumstances.

ALL SOULS DAY

By Christine Evans
Sponsored by Stoneham Theatre
Directed by Caitlin Lowans

Here young Derek Santos and Lydia Hannibal (who speaks mainly in Spanish) talked of matters I, frankly, can't remember. I got ther impression they were on a dry beach, somewhere. Perhaps if my college Spanish weren't 55 years ago, I could say more. The actors were sincere, movingly so, but for me there was just too much I didn't understand, most of that probably my fault.

ALL ABOUT CHRISTMAS EVE

By John Kuntz
Sponsored by Huntington Theatre
Directed by Brett Marks

What if the "All About Eve" plot involved second-grade kids working on the Xmas re-enactment? Put John Kuntz in a white robe and let him put on a pair of wings and a halo for his brief "I bring you great news" moment as Eve; let Julie Perkins suck ostentatiously on a crayon (not a cigarette) as the precocious Margo; let Rick Park say the sooth as Addison (deWitt, remember?), and have it narrated by friend-of-Margo Jan Davidson. Would it work?
It certainly did yesterday!

CLIENT # 1 *

By R. D. Murphy
Sponsored by Underground Railway Theater
Directed by Dev Luthra
Sound Design by Berred Oulette, Costumes by Amanda Mujica, Syage Manager & ASM Melissa Darof & Carolyn Blais; Special thanks to Van Ness Creative Group Beverly MA & Maura Tighe

Here Mark S. Cartier played Kenneth Lay --- you remember, the one who sold his stocks in his company 24-hours before they became worth less than the paper they were printed on? Okay, he was here --- somewhere --- trying to pay less than contract price for the services of a sin-eater. Debra Wise got her price, but the look on her face as she chomped whatever it was made me hope the compensation was high enough!
[*Asterisks here identify World Premiere Productions]

SHORT CUTS

By Christopher King
Sponsored by Playwrights' Platform
Directed by Christopher King
Special Thanks to Fran Clancy & Ann-Marie Coleman

Here Shelley Brown ran a unisex barber-shop where she and Zele Avradopoulos had mostly male customers, in this case Anthony Donohoe and Evan James --- one almost bald, the other implying that June (Zele) might give him a little more than a rose-water scalp massage some day.
But with the boys gone June revealed she was quitting, and Sadie accused her of skimming whenever alone in the shop. They never got down to hair-pulling, but the fur certainly flew!

ORANGE CRUSH

By Wesley Savick
Sponsored by National Theatre of Allston Directed by Wesley Savick

Wes Savick loves playing with the fact of theatricality. (I love his stuff! He's in the graduate playwriting program at Boston Playwrights', maybe trying to figure out what "plot" means?) Here he had a dozen young people strung across the stage belting out "I really want the world to sing in perfect harmony..." and then, before they repeated, one would run forward with a few-sentence personal wish about what he/she'd like to give, or what commercial soft-drink might actually Get the whole world to sing in that perfect et cetera. The "choreography" was simple, the choices quick but sincere, and the form set up a kind of audience anticipation of "What will the next one say?"
If you like that sort of thing, and I do, you'd like this. No doubt with more time, Wes would have built something out of this. (Maybe next year it'll have a PLOT, too!)

The line consisted of Melissa Barker, Brittany Daley, Patrick Flaherty, Caitlin Kenney, Laura Liberge, Hannah LaDouceur, Molly Kimmerling, Conor Parsons, Deidre McAllister, Alex Pollock, Greer Rooney and Nick Wilson

SMILE

By Nina Mansfield
Sponsored by Wellesley Theatre
Directed by Nora Hussey

My scrawled note "sexual 'harrassement'" is not enough here for a clear memory of this show. I think Mark Harpin and Kit Arnold played a situation in which each misunderstood the intentions when a man smiled at a woman. The aim, I think, was to underline the very different Past Experiences of each one that forced their confrontation over a really trivial incident.
But there were Fifty plays yesterday, and I'm almost 76.
If Anyone has ANY alternate memories of ANY of these plays, Please e-mail them to me immediately, okay?

NOLA

By Rick Park
Sponsored by Zeitgeist Stage Company
Directed by David J. Miller

This was a poetic love-letter to New Orleans, Louisiana. Robert D. Murphy, Cheryl Singleton, and Robin JaVonne Smith lined up on stage and gave bursts, a few sentences (and in Cheryl's case bits of singing) long, of explication of the charms, and flavor, and guts and sadnesses of this unfairly inflicted city. The effect was a little like quick, jagged, moving reflections in a shattered mirror. Rick Park can be a reigning drag-queen and he owns a flawless sense of comic timing, but this romance with the city seemed to flow out of his soul. And it worked

NOVICES

By Monica Raymond
Sponsored by Actors' Shaespeare Project
Directed by Douglas Lockwood

The ten-minute play is perfect for ringing various changes on bits of life, and the meet-cute of two people answering dating-service self-descriptions is the one picked out here. Molly Schreiber and Antonio Ocampo-Guzman asked each other for serious sado-masochistic games --- without very much previous practical experience. The joy here was watching each one throw themselves totally into character, only to have the other toss in a suggestion or criticism sending the situation back to an "oh, okay" square-one. The switch from fantasy to reality and then back was, in each case, knife-clean and total --- and histerically timed! The lady primly wearing "my fuck-me shoes" demanded a safe-word to bring the fantasy to a halt, then insisted on using "penis"! But the capper, of course, was their mutual decision that perhaps, before they got down to real business, maybe they'd best start with their ordinary wardrobes, ordinary lives, and ordinary shoes and --- an ordinary date.
The ferocity with which these two again and again threw themselves into fantasies brought from the audience the first stop-the-show applause, well deserved!

GAMES AND PUZZLES

By Gail Phaneuf
Sponsored by Image Theatre
Directed by Jerry Bisantz

Here's another typical situation --- a separating couple trying to decide who gets what, in this case from boxes left unopened when they moved in together. Terry O'Malley and Maryann Zschau handled the discoveries and changes with affection and vigor. The bickering over the game of "Twister" and a jigsaw-puzzle with two pieces missing turned metaphor of course, because it's the rest of the completed puzzle rather than the two faults that any marriage should concentrate on, right?

BLACK OPS *

By William Donnelly
Sponsored by Industrial Theatre Company
Directed by Heather McNamara

This was a glorious hoot! Greg Lusitano's voice on an on-stage communicator outlined the new case for a cool, matter-of-fact Kevin LaVelle who proceeded to brush and floss while hearing details of a break-in and night-time invasion of a bedroom. Lavelle kept cool until he began to question, like any burning-out operative for the CIA, the consequences of such manipulations of reality. And the capper? He padded off in socks and bathrobe only to come back in his clothing for surreptitious entries --- and he's the Tooth Fairy!
Lavelle is a brilliant, honest actor, and Bill Donnelly and Heather McNamara now have a child, but Ghod damn it I really miss The Industrial Theatre!

TESTIMONIAL *

By Jack Rushen
Sponsored by Way Theatre Artists
Directed by Greg Maraio & Julie Ohl

Here James Bodge played a writing teacher old enough to be driven to distraction whenever he uses the wrong word or can't think of the right one. Words have been his Life, and he's at that point where he wonders if that life were, in any way, worth the living. But he was talking to Eliza Lay, who reminded him a quiet girl who loved learning and sent him on graduation a thank-you poem --- before dying in an accident at age 22. Of course, she Was that dead girl come to assure him that his life, now also over, affected countless hundreds of others positively.
Everyone connected with this quiet gem gave it exactly what it deserved and needed.

OUTED *

By Payne Ratner
Sponsored by Foothills Theatre Company
Directed by Christopher James Webb

This was a cute, snippy little slice of disfuctional married life in which a wife (Jessica Webb) kept asking her hubby how a pizza-deliverer's penis found its way, according to a witness, into his mouth and his rectum. Maurice Parent did a brilliant job of spinning the situation, finally counter-attacking with Her fling at vindictive infidelity, at which she miserably confessed "I'm pregnant!" and he dead-pan snapped "So am I." [BLACKOUT]

DO YOU SEE THE GORILLA? *

By Alan Brody
Sponsored by New Repertory Theatre
Directed by M. Bevin O'Gara

This is another marriage-play so subtle and smooth it might take moments of reflection and even discussion to recognize the final impact of the metaphor. Steve Barkhimer (who is Steven when he fraternizes with Equity people) here played an overly-successful psychiatrist proud of his awareness of details that everyone else overlooks. Debra Wise as his wife was on the phone with his brother, who comes around a lot, but she told the following story: she was shown a You-Tube test in which she was supposed to count the times women were soloists in a chorus-piece, after which the brother asked the play's title, showed her the same snippet, and sure enough There was the Gorilla! Her husband simply insisted that He would have seen the gorilla, then turned to go off to be insightfully aware of his patients' details while his wife, calling his brother about their luncheon-date, smugly insisted "You WOULDN'T have seen the gorilla!"
[Anyone who doesn't understand what she meant, e-mail me...]

ROCKS *

By Lydia Diamond
Sponsored by Village Theatre Project
Directed by Christine Hamel

This couple (Julie Jirousek and Dale Place) had a genuine reason for their sharp bickering --- their son (Paul Cereghino) was obsessively fascinated by the kinds of rocks he was finding on their "restful" camping trip because he is dislexic. Author and director carefully put all the little pieces together until the entire picture became obvious, and the actors were equally careful with their slowly growing obvious concerns.

STICK AND MOVE

By Greg Lam
Sponsored by 11:11 Theatre Company
Directed by Sarah Farbo

What if a first date was played as a sort of boxing-match, with rounds separated by moments in which one or the other participants could retire to a corner and get swigs of water and advice about "in for the kill" and "knockout-blows" with gum-chewing coaches? What if the contestants decided to Throw The Fight and run off for dinner and conversation? Would the coaches want to go out themselves for pizza and conversation?
They did k\last night....

PROPERTY OF AFRICA *

By Erik Christian Hanson
Sponsored by Riverside Theatre Works
Directed by Tara Brooke Watkins

Mom (Debra Mein) was outraged at her teen-age son (Kevin P. Joyce) because he got a tattoo. The glum kid --- denied any of the food she gulped down, as a punnishment --- admitted he did it to alert the world about starvation, despotism, and racial warfare in Africa. But, as his angry mother points out, none of his classmates would understand and begin to talk about this unless he went to school without wearing his shirt.
Was there more here? If so, I can't remember.

EGGS, TOAST, COFFEE *

By Ron Fromstein
Sponsored by Publick Theatre Inc.
Directed by Devon Jencks

It was the first morning after their first night, and Ben Lambert in his shorts and Kortney Adams in robe and slippers were still amazed at the wonder of sex on the very first date. He, trying to explain how unique it was compared it to the eight other, well, encounters he somewhat proudly revealed. Pressed for a counter-revelation she replied "Seventy-two!" but admitted she was joking. Carefully, they tip-toed around the possibility until finally deciding --- like walking on eggs --- that, yes, spending the day together on a Second date sounded like a damn good idea.

CIGARETTE BOY *

By Hortense Gerardo
Sponsored by Boston Playwrights' Theatre
Directed by Richard McElvain

Papa (Bill Bruce) was in bed in an i.c.u. when his son (Ted Hewlett) came and found himself arguing dad out of smoking the last cigarette he had saved and secreted --- even though that might cause his oxygen bottle to explode. To one side a boy (Jeremiah Wang) took his first puffs and had his first dizzying coughing-fit --- then stuck with it till he had developed a taste for it. But dad died, at just about the time the boy began to get the hang of inhaling...

VERTICALS AND HORIZONTALS *

By Gary Garrison
Sponsored by Three Monkeys Theatrical Productions
Directed by Bridget Kathleen O'Leary

At play's opening a man (Michael Kaye) had rolled himself up into a rug, explaining to a saleswoman (Brooke Haney) that he needed it to get properly acquainted with a rug he wasn't sure he liked enough to pay for. Lying on the rug, he identified himself as a Horizontal, the woman standing bewildered next to him as a Vertical. She was new at the job, tried once or twice to lower herself to his level, even to lie beside him a moment before jumping up to admit she Is a vertical after all. He stretched out, delicately suggesting that the best of all possibilities occurs when Vertical and Horizontal meet and, after considering tentatively, she slowly lay down perpendicular, her hip delicately touched by his hair, as the lights went out.

AN ARM AND A LEG *

By David L. METH
Sponsored by Boston University School of Theatre
Directed by Tara Matkovsky

Michael Ouelette played a man, too old to get on an American list of candidates, who came to India to buy himself a kidney. Vin Mistra played a possible guide who, realizing the man is soon to die, recommends he go see The Taj as soon as possible!
But I must confess here that despite everything I did to prevent it, I nodded off and can't tell you what the resolution to their argument might have been. Again, can anyone help me here?

THE NEW WORLD *

By Vladimir Zelevinsky
Sponsored by SpeakEasy Stage Company
Directed by Susanne Bixby

This flurry of quick lines and exchanges and mime, flitting from person to quick person, earned the word "snipshots" from my note-taking pen. Full of the bustle and new experience of immigrants, it began with things like America recognized from the boat not by the Statue of Liberty, but the advertising sign for a drink everyone Knew came from The States.
The Huddled Masses were played in quickly-jumping, smooth mimes by MAureen Adduci, Eric Hamel, Kerry A. Dowling, Paul D. Farwell, Brett Cramp, and Amanda Good Hennessey

SAFE *

By James McClindon
Sponsored by Salem Theatre Company
Directed by Catherine M. Bertrand

The reverse of the breaking-up play, this one concerned a couple moving in together. Caroline Watson-Felt wanted to rush the unpacking, putting all his books on a newly emptied shelf; he'd expected to ease in, mixing His books with Her books a little more at leisure. Such little differences are clues, and eventually metaphors. And of course, by play's end, ready or not, there they were entwined together on a couch, waiting for life to unfold.

POOR SHEM *

By Gregory Hischak
Sponsored by Theatre on Fire
Directed by Darren Evans

This quick little slice of wacky office life presented Craig Houk, Crystal Lisbon, and Nathaniel Gundy with a familiar problem --- the copier jammed. The 8 & 1/2 X 11 tray was clogged --- by a necktie and, yep, it was still knotted around a throat. Shem's throat. ("Poor Shem!") As the trio stood, pointing carefully to details of the snarled (but non-existent)copier, they whipped quips, and quick observations, about in stacatto style perfectly nuanced, shaped, and timed to make surreal sense --- until one of them noticed the 8 & 1/2 X 16 tray was free of all snafu and, carefully pressing RESET before the ON button, everyone and the copier went back to work letting someone else, probably maintenance, worry about Poor Shem!

CABMAN *

By William Orem
Sponsored by Gurnet Theatre Project
Directed by Brett Marks

Bill Bruce played a Black cabman in Washington, with at opening three young men --- Chris Lyons, Tyler Reilly, and Christian Daniel Kiley --- as passengers busy making dates on their cell-phones, while the cabman tried to talk about the sites, about himself, about his son. A businessman (Terrence P. Haddad) read as he ignored him, and tried to stiff him because of supposed overchargeing. Finally there was a Black girl (Rydia Vielehar) who first promised to get money, then when he agreed admitted she would just run in the front door, out the back, and pay him nothing she was shocked when he agreed, but wouldn't stay to look at his son's photo. The son, of whom he was very proud, must have died in the war. The only person with any dignity in the play was The Cabman.

COUNTING RITA

By Patrick Gabridge
Sponsored by Mill 6 Theatre Collaborative
Directed by Barlow Adamson

Cute and quick. Julie Jirousek became annoyed as her old friend played by Elaine Theodore pointedly CLICKed a counter repeatedly during their catching-up conversation. Turned out she was counting her friend's Lies --- particularly about stealing this best-friend's boyfriend. As she fled, the click-girl called offstage greeting that boyfriend....but first re-setting the clicker eagerly to zero.

THE LAST CALL *

By Deirdre Girard
Sponsored by SouthCity Theatre Company
Directed by Steve Johnson

This one-woman play had Amy Meyer trying desperately to keep her therapist on the phone while he admited he was off meds and unconsole-ably depressed. The implication of this truly heartbreaking monologue was that saving many other's lives and hapiness couldn't keep him from probable suicide. The craft here, from everyone concerned, was stunning.

FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING

By John Shanahan
Sponsored by Another Country Productions
Directed by Krista D'Agostino & Foster Johns

The waitresses --- Magalie Neff Neff and Rena Baskin --- were immediately Positive that Christopher Lyons and Philana Gnatowski were breakfasting after their first night together. They even insisted the embarrassed couple deserved their "first-night breakfast special" they apparently forced on couples they Just Knew... But the girl speculated on how they "knew" while the guy wondered "Do they also know I'm Gay?" Cute play.

EGGS *

By Ronan Noone
Sponsored by The Vineyard Playhouse
Directed by M. J. Bruder Munafo

Briana Holt and Sofi Thanhauser played a (possibly) lesbian pair, one of whom had decided to sell one of her eggs to a fertility clinic --- and speculated on the add-ons, after $1,500.00 for just the egg, for specific characteristics like full boobs and long legs and skin-color. Her friend's revulsion turned, however, on her wanting to leave everything to God --- a major conflict driving them apart.
Ronan Noone's smaller plays are incredibly varied in subjects, but as well-written as his bigger ones. Bravo....

WHISTLING IN THE DARK

By Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro
Sponsored by Nora Theatre Company
Directed by Danny Gidron

Ken Baltin here played "a man of a certain age" who phoned a friend (Kippy Goldfarb) pretending to need a ride to the Emergency Room while his wife was raiding a fire-sale at Filene's. His object, however, was a little kanoodle on the side for old time's sake.
I'm glad to see that "sex at a certain age" is becoming a reliable subject for short comedies, and let's hope that "Life imitates Art"! ... at least once in a while.

PEPE DORMIDO *

By Tony Howarth
Sponsored by Boston College Dept. of Theatre
Directed by Patricia Riggin

David Anderson Lewis played a successful son finally finding time to visit his old father (Michael Wresinski) only to discover the woman hired to be the old man's companion Krista D'Agostino) has often left him alone to pick up jobs. Horrified, he tried to fire her, only to find she had Married dad and took care of him as a loving wife, refusing the companion's fee --- but had to work because her family in her home country needed the money she tried to send. The play deftly turned most assumptions on immigrant-issues on their heads by turning them into human drama.

LATE NIGHT IN AUGUST IN THE WELFLEET WOODS *

By DINA HARRIS
Sponsored by Spontaneous Theatre Project
Directed by Chris Carcione

Here Steven Cooper and Sarah Kron played two philandering psychiatrists interrupted in coitus by another psychiatrist's barking dog, then by his son and her daughter (both supposedly fifteen, though Alex Shuck and Ellie Wilson read a bit older) showering outside after a supposed skinny-dip and some heavy kissing.
This might be a crucial scene from a bigger play --- or maybe a wish-fulfillment dream? Either way, it probably could use a re-write.

SHOWER

By Jeremy Goldstein
Sponsored by Apollinaire Theatre Company
Directed by Attissa Banuazizi

Barry (Joe Orrigo) barged into Elliot's (Stephen Libby) apartment in bathrobe and flip-flops demanding a shower because he smelled so bad --- even though he lived six blocks down the avenue. This is really a homosexual ploy attempting to re-ignite a cold relationship, and it was Elliot's job 1) to keep Barry out of what may have been an already inhabited shower, and 2) to convince him of the reality of their situation. Given the absurdity of it all, it really worked quite well as a ridiculous comedy with moments of genuine emotion.

BENJI 53 *

By Leslie Harrell Dillen
Sponsored by West End Theater
Directed by M. Lynda Robinson Sound Effects by Will Hunt

Two men in Air Force uniforms (Alex Pollack & Paul Melendy) sat in chairs, one behind and to stage-right of the other, while in deeper background on the right Jannelle Mills sat at a computer-screen, monitoring things on radar. In deep left a woman in Arab garb (Elise Manning) folded clothing and sheets that nearly glowed in the lights. The men were pilots, one trying desperately to nurse his wounded jet across a border after being somehow hit. His wing-man refused to abandon him, reported sparks coming out the tailpipe, then flames --- at which point the damaged plane exploded, with the woman suddenly watching fascinated as, apparently, something fell from the sky.
This must have been the opening scene of something that could have been an interesting play.

SEX FOR A CHANGE

By Robert Brustein
Sponsored by American Repertory Theatre
Directed by David Wheeler

Steven (see, he's working with an Equity member here!) Barkhimer played a surgeon here who thought he was doing a sex-change operation while Bobbie Steinbach as his nurse insisted it was an apendectomy --- so he decided on the more complicated job, because he'd never done one before! However, he'd HAD one. Turned out, his nurse had had one too. And, as they decided over the bed to act --- though now from "opposite corners" as it were. Suddenly the patient (Robert Bonotto) rose up groggily between them demanding "Haven't you taken out my tonsils yet?"
[BLACKOUT}

THE WOMAN YOU DESERVE

By Janet Kenney
Sponsored by CentaStage
Directed by Joe Antoun

This is a fine little play in which a slightly tipsy father (Jeff Gill) visited his son (Michael Dorval) as he was dressing for his wedding --- and finding it impossible to hook up his cummerbund. Dad is insisting his second marriage --- to a woman no one in the family likes very much --- will be in just three weeks, while his son asks him to wait until his own mother died, soon, of cancer. Despite a lot of neat humor, the laughter-of-recognition in places, the author managed to make several solid points ("Son, remember no one ever Deserves the woman he marries" for instance) and to prove not only that dad still loved his first wife, but that they knew each other better than anyone else did. There's a lot of neatly hinted truth packed into this little play

ONE IN A MILLION *

By Susan Kosoff
Sponsored by Wheelock Family Theatre
Directed by Susan Kosoff

Here Jane Staab played a woman who couldn't sleep and M. Lynda Robinson her oldest friend, around to help her with the difficult business of dying. It's the uniqueness of every life that's played out here, and the uniqueness of deaths, too.

OPEN HOUSE *

By Michael J. Grady
Sponsored by Our Place Theatre Project
Directed by Dawn Simmons
Puppeteer, Shauday Johnson

In this surreal farce Jason Cross played a real-estate broker showing a house to Mark Sickler, while the living-room rug seethed and pulsated and, well, burped. Getting from the front hall to the kitchen proved difficult unless agent and victim tripped lightly over the length of a sofa. But as soon as he put his foot on the ground Mark was swallowed by the floor, whereupon Nathanael Shea came on berating his agent/partner for incompetence --- and about then Adelmar Pereira appeared as yet another buyer for The open House.....

SOLDIER BOY *

By Leslie Powell
Sponsored by Metro Stage Company
Directed by Lisa Rafferty

Here Jonathan Popp was a returned soldier abducting a woman (Claire McClanahan), frightening her, threatening to shoot her with a pistol, threatening to shoot himself. Terrified, she managed to knock the gun from his hand and, to prevent him from reaching it, wrapped him in an embrace he accepted as though reverting to childhood. The wellsprings of violence here are obscure unless you may have read the New York TIMES accounts of stress syndromes that have sent at least a dozen or two returning soldiers and marines who have been lost to murder, jail, or suicide after a tour or two in Iraq. Maybe, because I had read of it, this quick, bitten-off play may have made a little more sense to me than to others.

SUB-PRIME *

By Ed Bullins
Sponsored by Boston Theatre Works
Directed by Anne Gottlieb

This full-out, loud play featured Jackie Davis brandishing a baseball-bat and Ricardo Engermann with a gun ready to defend their humble home from --- well, from nearly anybody. Hysterical, driven to distraction, they saw every shadow as a threat and loudly threatened any and all comers. And I'm sorry, but I couldn't take it as seriously as everyone intended, as I wanted to myself.

HELL OF A POKER FACE *

By Christopher Lockheardt
Sponsored by Hovey Players
Directed by Michelle M. Aguillon

In this tightly crafted little comedy four men sat at a table playing the last, biggest pot of the night. Two of them folded, but at the far end, one craftily bet everything he had --- and the two folded players became a chorus to this mano-a-mano drama. They realized the outcome would turn on one card that Could Be the --- well whatever it was, it could make the bettor's hand the winner --- and him the most enigmatic poker-face of the quartet. The player at the other end of the table had to call, IF he was sure the other was bluffing, or fold himself.
The kibbitzers argued all possibilities, praising one for his silence, ridiculing the other for his oh-so-readable countenance, enumerating the dread possibilities that one, or the other, was the master of bluff --- or of counter-bluff.
Finally the gun-slinge.. er, the card-slingers came to the finale, the last player called the hand ......and the other ATE TWO OF HIS CARDS so no one would ever know the truth!
Michelle M. Aguillon --- who directed J. Mark Baumhardt, Claude Del, Michael Sean Corbett, and Mark Sickler --- recently resigned her success-studded career as Hovey President, with this neatly machined gem as the sweet, glowing cherry atop her stay here. I wish her well (and a broken leg) when she wings west to join her family in California, and hope to talk at least once more with her before she goes.

FRABJOUS DAY *

By April Springer
Sponsored by Emerson Stage
Directed by Courtney O'Connor

Shawn Verrier marched onstage with a long bloodied sword, his boy's hands drenched in blood to the elbow, calling to his father (Bill Mootos) the news of his glorious victory. At last they were both victorious hunters, the heads of first a Jubjub Bird, now The Jabberwock, to be pinned up on their wall for all to see. Playwright April Springer added to the mix a poetry-spouting uncle expected to sing both hunters' praises --- till the boy admitted he skewered the beast from behind as it drank by the river, and the truth of dad's famous victory came grudgingly tumbling out: he too struck from behind, only wounding the bird; it was really Uncle closed for the kill, then renounced his triumph in doubt and fear and remorse, sang his brother as a hero. But at last, the beamish boy with his clean kill redeemed the family's honor. Caloo! Callay!!!

TAKE TWO *

By Deborah Lake Fortson
Sponsored by Shadow Boxing Theatre Workshop
Directed by Lisa Burdick

Again, the subject is age. Mary Shapiro played a woman of 93 --- repeating her questions a bit, but enjoying singing old songs, and happy to share forest sounds and sights with her sixty-odd daughter (Sharon Mason). (I hope I didn't mix up the players here!) There were lovers lounging on a blanket (Sara Jones & Michael D. Smith), wrapped in one another silently, lovingly, creating continuity. Age, even with occasional lapses into recycled questions, has never looked more lovely.

FIGHT TEST *

By Georgia Lyman & Angie Jepson
Sponsored by Orpheo Group
Directed by Brett Marks
Special Thanks to Jack Neary

I have seen Angie Jepson's fight choreography, and here she and stage combat choreographer squared off to demonstrate why they are so good at what they do. As a plot, there was Adam McLean playing a teacher of stage combat asking a pair of pupils (or maybe colleagues?) to enact the fight between "little" Hermia and "the painted Maypole" Helena from "Midsummer" --- as a demonstration of his own fight-choreographic skills, to win acreditation from an off-stage adjudicator (Daniel Bergen-Jones). And of course it was only moments before the ladies were mixing For Real, throwing punches and insults, eventually their mentor himself embroiled in their brangling.
The first rule of this choreography is really SAFETY --- stage combat is designed to Look deadly, not to Be deadly. You can tell novices at it because it's so safe as to look fake, while the fear the actors might really hurt themselves is the mark of a master. Here everyone actually Struck Blows here and there, yet everyone ended laughing at their bows. And, just for a little Verbal jousting, I suspect what Jack Neary added to this piece was the willingness of Lyman and Jepson to use their real selves in fashioning their barbed taunts which (See the final play of this Marathon for details) made the audience moan in pain, but wounded not the protagonists.
And a great time was had by all, including ME!

BREAK IT DOWN *

By John Oluwole Adekoje
Sponsored by Company One
Directed by Victor Marsh

The '60s were a long time ago, but here Keith Mascoll played the ageing spirit of those break-it-down days --- a stentorian shouter admitting, these days, he's reduced to delivering pizzas for a living. What a shock when Nelson Martinez, a dozen-or-so-year-old on a cell, ordered a pizza with slices of Freedom on top, saying "Listen, Son..." to his elder, and demanding a second pie on grounds of lateness, and stomping boxes into the dirt in an uppity snit. The old order passeth, perhaps, but this kid rapped his self in cool distain 'stead of wearing a diaper with "2008" on the back.

DEPTH OF PERCEPTION *

By Katherine Roscher
Sponsored by Turtle Lane Playhouse
Directed by James Tallach

For this, Jonathan Popp sat alone at a corner table sipping white wine when in walked Penny Benson nearly wearing the shortest skirt, the tallest heels, and the longest legs this side of Vegas, and she asked him a question, one about a movie, and he couldn't answer. She was a "fantasy-date" looking for a client and just happened to look in the wrong corner of the room. But she decided to stay with the flustered stranger because the guy in that other corner looked very Not her type. After a little wine she became positively clairvoyent, identifying herself as free, and him as not in love with the wife who left his table an hour and a half ago and wouldn't be back. Amazing how people meet and bond in plays these days, ain't it?

HERO AND LEANDER *

By Alison Potoma
Sponsored by North Shore Music Theatre
Directed by Toby Schine
Music Director Daniel Blake
Accompanist Sandy Nason

Leander (played and sung by Penny Hansen) could swim The Helespont to be with Hero (Sarah Ziegler) because Neptune (or was it Poseidon?) was a pal. In this comic operetta a long blue cloth played the Helespont, drowning the hero (I mean Leander) one dark and stormy night, and Hero cried --- and that's about all, except the pair of lovers told the audience all about themselves in song then then let their love and doom overtake them. Why then was I so pleased by the result? I think because the edge between comic and tragic was a little blurred here, the "let's not take all this Too seriously" attitude and the pleasant melodies never bruised one another, and so everything was fun, and short.

BEIRUT ROCKS *

By Israel Horovitz
Sponsored by Gloucester Stage Company
in collaboration with
Barefoot Theatre Company
Directed by Israel Horovitz

OK-kay, I blew it.
This year I took "copious notes" (sometimes more than One Word per play!) and up till now something about the title, the cast, or the notes brought the plays all back into focus. All of course but one.
This one.
Can anyone help me here? Even Christopher Whalen (Benjy), Francisco Solorzano (Jake), Kendra Leigh Landon (Seandy) and/or Patrizia Hernandez (Nasa) are welcome to e-mail me some hints about their plot. Or anyone else. Please?

Date: Tue, 13 May 2008 18:07:14 +0000
From: monica raymond femmevox@hotmail.com
Subject: thanks!
To: larrystark@theatermirror.com

Dear Larry,
Thanks for your kind words about the amazingly funny, playful, gifted and hardworking actors in NOVICES at the BTM.

As for the Israel Horowitz show you couldn't remember, it has four undergrads, two men and two women, in a Beirut hotel room, waiting to be evacuated from their semester abroad programs. One is Palestinian-American and starts saying anti-Semite things. One is a Jewish boy waving a golf club. They decide to strip the Palestinian American because they're afraid she's a suicide bomber. The girl searches her and the Palestinian American woman, horribly humiliated, starts screaming about how someday she COULD be a suicide bomber.

Thanks to your amazing comprehensive review, you brought back into focus one play that had completely slipped MY memory. It was the one with the prostitute in the hat and the guy who doesn't love his wife anymore and slips his wedding ring into the water glass at the end. No idea why it was that one that drew a complete blank.
so it goes....
all the best,
Monica Raymond

THE GRAND SCHEME *

By Jack Neary
Sponsored by New Century Theatre
Directed by Jack Neary

Jack Neary is that cruel funster whose play "The Porch" will open shortly at Stoneham Theatre, sending-up the aged with his flawlessly-timed lines and rapier-sharp direction. This year he had Ellen Colton and Bobbie Steinbach playing two rival actresses (Clarice and Bethel) asked by some upstart young artistic director to read the same speech in order to vie for a starring role only one can get --- and whoever goes Second can steal ideas from whoever goes first, right? So to minimize that possibility each showed the other their stuff and each decided what might be stolen. But why be petty, right? Bobbie graciously let Ellen go in first, magnanimously saying "Look, if there's anything I did that you can use, Use it to make your interpretation the best it can be..." And then she stole Everything!
That's what I love about Jack: he makes his theatrical portraits so UNrealistic, doesn't he?

Break a leg all!

Love,
===Anon.

---

Ditsy "Dames"
at Turtle Lane

Reviewed by Beverly Creasey

DAMES AT SEA is a silly, and I do mean silly, send-up of those beloved Broadway shows which, if we were to be totally honest, we’d have to admit are pretty hokey. The Turtle Lane Playhouse in Newton is taking out the tongue-in-cheek spoof (by George Haimson, Robin Miller and Jim Wise) for a sail through May 25th. If you’re familiar with FORBIDDEN BROADWAY, think of DAMES as its precursor.

"Dames at Sea" (2 - 25 May)

TURTLE LANE PLAYHOUSE

283 Melrose Street, NEWTON MA

1(617)244-0169

The Vokes Players’ quirky production of THE DRAWER BOY is running through May 17th at the historic theater in Wayland. Michael Healey’s thoughtful play about friendship and sacrifice centers around two farmers, one of whom was severely injured in WWII. He and his buddy spend their days working a meager dairy farm in Ontario, when one day a city boy shows up wanting to write about farm life. His inquiries drive a wedge between the two men and long buried secrets are revealed.