By Jessica Kennedy.
Theatre Three’s 22nd Annual Festival of One-Act Plays opened this past weekend, featuring six world premieres at the Ronald F. Peierls Theatre on Second Stage. Directed by Jeffrey Sanzel, these evocative debuts were carefully selected from over 400 submissions- adding to the 8,000 submissions since the festival’s inception. In a note from the director, Sanzel likens one-acts to “diamonds- small, but multi-faceted gems offering a range of planes and prisms, reflections and refractions.” After viewing this inspired and eclectic mingling of performances, I couldn’t agree more!
The show opens with Playlist To Have A Crisis To by Tom Slot, and almost immediately introduces a classical character in our culture in a very unconventional way. Stephen T. Wangner portrays this ancestral role cleverly- the juxtaposition between what the audience expects, and what we see is quite startling. Our attention, however, shifts to Alexia and Tanya, played by Nicole Bianco and Michelle LaBozzetta, who demand it of us, as they are apt to do, commenting on their generation’s compulsion towards selfishness. Both traditionally and socially divergent, this show will leave you both jolly and unquiet.
For A Moment In The Darkness, We Wait by Libby Leonard immediately follows, and lacks any of the jovial or playful moments we discerned in its predecessor. Douglas J. Quattrock and Ryan Schaefer play Bernard and Connie: two lone wolves who come from different generations, different worlds, yet find themselves bonding as a pack to make a stronger force. This poignant commentary on how we manipulate people in order to protect ourselves, illuminates the myriad of ways deflection and deception can be a double edged sword- one that wards off predators, but draws our own blood in the process.
Next up is seemingly lighter fare- a story set in a typical workplace in present day. Perfectly Normal by J. Joseph Cox opens on a workroom populated with the traditional, cliched workplace tropes- we have the impassive gossip (Nicole Bianco), the bewailing critic (Stephen T. Wangner), the excitable fatalist (Antoine Jones), and the imperturbable leader (Suzie Dunn). While the play is spotted with stereotypical office banality- rumors, coffee, conspiracy, coffee- the plot takes a strange twist, and becomes a worrisome satire of upper management and employee relations. By the end of the performance you have to wonder who is at fault: the aggressive and odious leaders up in their ivory tower, or the apathetic and impotent followers who don’t question their situation until it’s too late?
Family by Numbers by Arianna Rose is right before the show’s intermission, and is well placed, as you will need a moment to decompress after such an ardent and agonizing portrayal of a family devastated by loss. Steve Ayle, Linda May, Dylan Robert Poulos, Steven Uihlein, and Ryan Schaefer deliver a raw and realistic performance of a family blessed by numbers, yet also haunted by them. While there is conflict and dissent amongst some family members, and others just wish for peace, the true undercurrent of the show reveals itself, as the father (Ayle) muses, that “It’s the people who are really the treasures.”
The Unforgivable Sin Of Forgiveness by Rich Orloff is the act’s fifth installment, and is easily the lightest and most comedic of the evening. Its plot reveals a husband and wife, Antoine Jones and Tracylynn Conner, in an exasperating and hilarious struggle to identify who is more duplicitous: a perceptive husband or a fraudulent wife. While Conner’s character is sardonic and petulant, Jones portrays her counterpart as nonplussed; that is, until he gets the last word! This satirical approach to navigating the expectations of monogamy will have you laughing along with your sugar, your artificial sweetener, or whomever you may have brought along with you!
This emotional night of theater ends with Charles Belov’s The Making of Medea’s Medea. One need not know all the details of the original to experience the catharsis that Greek tragedies are known for while watching Belov’s rendition. The story starts now- on this stage. Medea has been released on parole after spending thousands of years in jail, and is given the opportunity (and the seemingly unlimited resources) to tell her version of events by writing and directing her own version of Medea. As the play progresses, it becomes clear that Medea is tortured by the pain of her past, and unfit to direct- still the show must go on! Enchanted by the gruesome details of her suffering, people and performers flock to her, demanding their own self- entitled pound of flesh. The result is more pain, more blood, more poison- more ticket sales! This show has the largest cast, and provides a powerful performance by Linda May as Medea. It uses all the talent on the stage to enact a play that, while comedic at times, is ultimately a scathing commentary of the media’s aptitude to excuse voyeurism in the pursuit of true art.
