Andy Powers, Shane McRae and Emily Tremaine in
a scene from Roger Heddein’s “If I Had” in Summer Shorts 3: Series B
(Photo credit: Carol Rosegg)
Summer in New York is the season of theater festivals. Summer Shorts 3: Festival of New American Plays, now in its third year at 59E59 Theaters, offers eight world premiere short plays over two evenings. The styles are diverse, running the gamut from comedy to tragedy and monologue to musical. The themes are all contemporary, although one of the playlets is set in the Edwardian era. Each evening offers four plays that are satisfying to varying degrees though all are well produced by J.J. Kandel and John McCormack.
Series B is the more unusual evening, presenting a comedy, a modern version of a Greek tragedy, a social commentary, and a realistic drama. Roger Hedden’s “If I Had” is the most interesting of its four plays, a contemporary investigation into social class boundaries. Slim (Shane McRae) and Augie (Andy Powers) are long-time friends who run a lawn service catering to wealthy clients. However, Augie is full of rage at the economic differences between himself and the people to whom he is beholden. He wants to take out his anger on Audrey (Emily Tremaine), the teenage daughter who sits sunning herself while her parents are away. Augie’s ultimate action has repercussions for the partnership as well as the friendship. Billy Hopkins’ astute direction obtains subtle and understated performances from his trio of actors.
Keith Reddin’s “The Sin Eater” is the most ambitious of the four plays: a contemporary version of the Electra story as told in terms of an African American family. Teenage El (Clara Hopkins Daniels) curses her mother Cleo (Rosalyn Coleman) for the stabbing death of her father. Jamie Watkins as the social worker on the case speaks as an advising chorus. When El’s long-lost brother Orel (Sheldon Woodley) returns, the two conspire to make their mother pay for her crime. Reddin uses all sorts of theatrical techniques such as having the characters each address the audience, dialogue slipping into lines from Hamlet, use of other myths in explaining the title. It all seems somewhat unwieldy and unfocused. While Coleman gives a titanic performance in the Clymtemnestra role, Hopkins has not been as successful with the other actors who use varying styles that jar with each other.
The curtain raiser, Carole Real’s “Don’t Say Another Word” is an amusing two hander about a couple in a restaurant who nearly get into a series of arguments over simple remarks which lead to opening topics better left alone (their relationship, her looks, etc). Under the direction of Ian Belknap, Andy Grotelueschen and Stephanie D’Abruzzo are quite quirky and believable as the seemingly mismatched pair. While the play seems like there is more to come, ironically, author Real has written a full length play using the same characters.
William Inge’s “The Killing,” recently discovered, has the best pedigree. This unknown play by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Picnic, Bus Stop and Come Back, Little Sheba may be the most autobiographical play that Inge ever wrote. Written just before his suicide at age 60, a lonely aging homosexual cut off from friends and theater colleagues in Kansas, “The Killing” brings two middle-aged strangers together. Mac (Neal Huff) has brought Huey (Kandel) home for a drink after meeting in a bar, but his real motive is that he has an unusual request: he wants Huey to put him out of his misery by shooting him. While the play is realistically written with deep feeling, it seems underwritten. Mac never reveals how or why his life has come to this abyss and Huey does not ask enough questions to get the story. Jose Angel Santana has staged the play with great sensitivity but he can’t make up for what the script doesn’t offer.
Victor Slezak and Margaret Colin in a scene from
Neil LaBute’s “A Second of Pleasure” in Summer Shorts 3: Series A
Series A is a much more conventional group of plays, all on the themes of misunderstanding and lack of communication. The most completely realized of the plays in this group is “A Second of Pleasure,” a real surprise from Neal LaBute. While his previous plays have all been violent, gut-wrenching shockers, this play is almost pastoral by comparison. A middle-aged couple, Jess (Margaret Colin) and Kurt (Victor Slezak), have met at a train station with the intention of leaving for a romantic weekend on the Cape, but Jess has changed her mind and doesn’t at first want to tell Kurt why she is having second thoughts.
Nothing is what it seems in this well-perceived comedy-drama of modern relationships. Director Andrew McCarthy has allowed Colin to be extremely strident in the first half of the play which makes her very unsympathetic but it maybe a calculated risk, as she turns softer and more confiding in the latter half. Slezak is excellent as the understanding lover who has reservations of his own.
Nancy Giles, best known as the contributor to CBS News Sunday Morning, has written and performs her own monologue, “Things My Afro Taught Me.” In this hilarious piece, Giles describes the problems she has had with her hair over the years. She then segues into problems with a bitchy boss when she worked at Lifetime Television. Although it seems that the two parts of her monologue are unrelated, she manages to bring them together at the end. Giles is always commanding and entertaining even when “Thing My Afro Taught Me” goes on a bit too long.
John Augustine’s “Death by Chocolate” is not as fully realized as his “Father’s Day” in Summer Shorts 1. However, it makes some interesting points about grief and mourning. Sheila (Sherry Anderson), who has been suddenly widowed at age 50 when her husband choked at work on a piece of chocolate, is trying to make a new life for herself. Unfortunately, no one will let her, and all her interactions are both unpleasant and unfortunate, particularly her jealous sister-in-law who mistakenly thinks Sheila has been left very well off by the death of her brother.
The play attempts to cover too many topics in too short a time, while Mary Joy makes the sister-in-law extremely strident so that we do not sympathize with her own disappointment at her unfulfilling marriage. Aaron Paternoster is charming as all the male characters (from florists, to her husband’s colleague, to her off-stage brother in law) that interrupt Sheila while she is trying to get on with her life. Robert Saxner keeps the play moving but isn’t able to solve the awkwardness inherent in the well-meaning script nor to make Sheila seem less unpleasant and more sympathetic as she copes with her grief.
“The Eternal Anniversary” continues composer/lyricist Skip Kennon’s investigation into the Edwardian world which he began with “Afternoon Tea” in Summer Shorts 1. The libretto for this charming musical, almost a chamber opera, is by Bill Connington. After 20 years of marriage, chef Tom (Robert W. DuSold) still makes a sumptuous meal for his beloved wife Sarah (Leenya Rideout) on the occasion of their wedding anniversary. However, the happy event soon spirals into acrimony as Tom accuses Sarah of having been unfaithful to him years before. Thomas Caruso’s staging is in keeping with the 1914 setting and DuSold and Rideout add their accomplished voices to the lovely score. “The Eternal Anniversary” is both charming and satisfying as far as it goes, but it feels as though it could be further developed into a longer piece.
Using the all black space, designer Maruti Evans has cleverly created black furniture and a series of black, free-standing doors which are quickly rearranged for all eight shows. Michael Bevins has designed suitably attractive and realistic costumes for all the different settings and time periods. The necessary sound effects are the effective work of Tim Pioppo.
The advantage of an evening of short plays is the variety offered: you are bound to like at least one of the plays. Summer Shorts 3 offers a wide variety of work from playwrights of different styles and techniques. Though some of the plays seem slight, others are fine work from important writers.
Summer Shorts 3: Series A and B (in rotating repertory through August 27)
59E59 Theaters, 59 E. 59th Street, in Manhattan
For tickets, call 212-279-4200 or http://www.ticketcentral.com