Arthur French and Scott Adsit in a scene from Alan Zweibel’s Happy
(Photo credit: Carol Rosegg)
The one-act form is as malleable as play dough. You can make it work for one character or a dozen; one scene or many. Series B of Summer Shorts 4: Festival of New American Short Plays covers several very intriguing topics, as well as including a little masterpiece.
Alan Zweibel is best known for his Emmy award-winning work in television. However, his new one-act play, Happy, could change all this. This wonderfully realized play is at the same time funny, poignant and moving. Donald (played by Scott Adsit), a sports memorabilia salesman, has taken time away from his family Seder in Florida to find George “Happy” Haliday (veteran stage actor Arthur French), a former Mets baseball player and hero of his youth.
However, Happy has been a janitor for many years and is extremely suspicious of Don’s interest in his one season before an injury turned his career into “What Might Have Been.” Many unexpected twists and turns occur before Don reveals the true story of his visit and reaches a new rapprochement with Happy. French’s light touch turns Happy’s wry comments into hilarious comedy, and Adsit’s honest emotion at the real reason for Don’s visit is heart-breaking. The sensitive direction by Law and Order’s executive producer/director Fred Berner makes this an unforgettable theatrical experience.
The other three plays in Series B have intriguing premises but are not as fully realized. The curtain raiser, Wendy Kesselman’s The Graduation of Grace, presents Clare Hopkins Daniels as the eighth grade valedictorian at the prestigious Acorn School in Manhattan where she has been the only black student since age five. Having been an Acorn for the last nine years, she has acquired the nickname of Tiger. Dressed entirely in white, Grace tells of how she discovered poetry through William Blake’s “Tyger, tyger burning bright” only to discover that, not only was Blake not talking about her, but that he was also racist. This leads her to a walking trip to Harlem where she discovers black poets and finds her identity.
Although the play starts very slowly, it builds in momentum and eventually packs quite a wallop as this eighth grader gives us all a lesson in brotherhood. Not only is Daniels extremely convincing as this eighth grader but under Stephanie Berry’s unobtrusive direction uses dance and movement beautifully to tell her story. The work of costume designer Michael Bevins is much in evidence in helping the play to make its point.
José Joaquin Perez and Kate Cullen Roberts
in a scene from Neil Koenigsberg’s Fit
(Photo credit: Carol Rosegg)
Neil Koenigsberg’s Fit has an unusual premise and the colorful lingo of fitness junkies. However, the relaxed direction by Merri Milwe undercuts the humor and tension that ought to come from the situation that the flamboyant characters find themselves in. To help increase his income, Billy Butch has started a massage business where he offers more than simply massage. His girl friend Kimmie Rose, another fitness fanatic, grows suspicious of his increasing friendship with English film director Walter, and takes matters into her own hands. The title is used ironically to suggest both physical fitness and the tight fit each of the three characters form with each other.
Billy Butch’s dialogue with his client Walter is all flirtatious innuendo; his conversations with Kimmie Rose are conducted in the cartoon-ish lingo of body builders. Played at a faster pace this would be hilarious but as performed here it all just seems strained vernacular and misses its target. While José Joaquin Perez as Billy Butch and Liam Torres as Walter have a jaunty touch with the dialogue, Kate Cullen Roberts as the woman who comes between them doesn’t have a sense of the crispness or the comical nature of her fitness idioms.
In Jonathan’s Blaze, Christopher Stetson Boal initially has the audience sitting on the edge of their seats as we eyeball the loaded gun and the prominent red gasoline can. Unfortunately, the play covers the same ground too often and takes too long getting to its foregone conclusion. Former marine sergeant Thomas has been kidnapped by Joseph, a man with the gun and the gas can. Joseph claims to be under the direction of an Angel who wants Thomas to confess to his role in the death of Jonathan, one of his raw recruits, four years before.
As their tense interview continues it becomes obvious that appearances are not what they seem and that Joseph has a personal reason for revenge. Under the direction of Alexander Dinelaris, P.J. Sosko as the hard-bitten former marine and J.J. Kandel as the crazed revenger are fine. However, they are unable to keep the play from dissipating its tension by its length without more plot developments. Ron Piretti’s fight direction is excellent as far as it goes but more of the same might have prolonged the pressure of the men’s conflict. Unaccountably, Sosko who looks extremely fit is given no opportunities to show Thomas’ marine training.
The minimalism of Robert Gould’s setting for the four plays in Series B is much more effective than in Series A. Here the atmosphere of each story is deftly drawn by the few set pieces, although the lighting by Greg MacPherson does not play much of a part in the mood required.
All of the plays in Series B of Summer Shorts 4 are novel and engrossing, demonstrating the resiliency of the form. Only Alan Zweibel’s Happy is a total success, but that is one you won’t soon forget. The others seem like competent drafts of plays that rewriting could still make better.
Summer Shorts 4: Series B (in rotating repertory through September 2)
59E59 Theaters, 59 E. 59th Street, in Manhattan
For tickets, call 212-279-4200 or http://www.59E59.org .