You come away pleased with the two hours you’ve spent watching talented people play characters imagined by talented writers. Not a moment is wasted.
BY J. PETER BERGMAN
11th Annual 10×10 New Play Festival
Barrington Stage Company
Directed by Julianne Boyd and Matthew Penn
“Is it in the subtext?”
Ten new short plays, with an emphasis on funny, are gracing the mainstage of Barrington Stage Company’s Pittsfield complex at the moment. One or two of them could be considered laugh-riots, while the rest are amusing and thought-compelling. This year’s crop makes a fine mixture of theatrical experiences. You come away pleased with the two hours you’ve spent in comfortable seats watching talented people changing their voices and styles, playing the characters imagined by talented writers. Not a moment is wasted. And, as usual, a theme emerges from the evening and that theme is expressed in the line quoted at the top of this review: “Is it in the subtext?” Each of these plays lives below its surface dialogue; each has a story to tell that isn’t always evident from the first lines.
After the usual Matt Neely opening “number,” which give the show an instant comic lift, the first play contrasts a gregarious man and a reserved woman waiting for a bus in inclement weather. Laurie Allen’s “Stealing a Kiss” is the perfect Robert Zukerman and Peggy Pharr Wilson take on the human character in a very human situation. They grab the stage, and the new and the familiar open the show. It couldn’t be a better choice. On the surface it’s a pick-up by an older man of a careful woman, but underneath it is really about human hunger; the simple becomes subtle and the truth slips into the piece at the right moment. These two actors are the perfect pair to play these two people.
This is followed by “Love Me, Love My Work” by Glenn Alterman, from which comes the quote at the top of the review. Wilson and Matt Neely contend with a writer’s dilemma when a play isn’t working just right. When it turns out that murderer Wilson may not be dealing with a real person, but perhaps a character, the play moves into its “other” level and the whole concept of creativity comes into question. A provocative play with excellent actors.
These first plays were well directed by Julianne Boyd and the next piece brought the other director, Matthew Penn, into the show with “Honestly” by Stephen Korbar. Doug Harris and Kelsey Rainwater play the couple with difficulties. The first half of the program continues with the three women (Pharr Wilson, Rainwater, and Aziza Gharib) together in “Gown” by Robert Weibezahl, which examines the relationship between a young woman and her mother in crisis. Wedding gowns are the medium they use and the saleswoman is swept into their melodrama. It is one of the sweetest plays in this collection of new works, and beautifully staged by Boyd.
The first half ends with Penn’s staging of John Bavoso’s hilarious “An Awkward Conversation in the Shadow of Mount Moriah,” featuring Abraham (Zukerman) and his son Isaac (Harris), shortly after Daddy’s sacrifice on the mountain. One of the funniest scripts in the group, this modern language take on these Biblical folk brings a new understanding to a near-tragic event. I could watch this play countless times and find more things in it in each viewing. It is a delightful comedy turn for both men and a figurative rock that half-fills the stage.
Part two of the show opens with “Escape from Faux Pas” by Cynthia Faith Arsenault, in which an older couple, newly settled in a ritzy retirement community, accidentally open a neighbor’s mail and struggle with the aftermath. Penn brings a sense of vaudeville and burlesque into Wilson and Zukerman’s work in this hoot of a play. I’m not sure who was more exhausted after this, the actors or the audience wracked with laughter.
Penn follows this with Ellen Abrams’ “Liars Anonymous,” in which Neely and Aziza Gharib confess their life stories to one another while cleaning up after a meeting. One outrageous contortion after another escape their lips and the two characters live to tell another tale … and who knows where each might go for the facts. Boyd follows this with a hectic tale of comic woe in “Misfortune” by Mark Harvey Levine, in which a man is tortured by an alarming collection of fortune cookie papers as his wife seems to enjoy the dangers too much. A waitress and a man from a different dining area complete the awkward picture here in a play about believing too strongly in the accidents of fate and the fate of too little knowledge.
When the contents of comedy stir truths rather than ridicule, the outcome is often hard to take, but this group of new plays does just the opposite. The final two plays in the group are excellent examples of this, particularly in the final work. Under Penn’s direction, Chelsea Marcantel’s “Climax” examines the ways in which three different people see their relationships with one another. It is a good play, one of the more serious in the group, though using a comic gimmick, but it is the play that ends the show that takes things to a new, relevant level.
“The Voice of the People” by Cary Pepper gives Boyd an opportunity to turn her company into an entire town. Zukerman plays an MSNBC-type commentator interviewing folks after the vote in a local election and the other five actors play everyone else in town. They change characters as easily as they change hats, and out in the audience we can find ourselves on the stage as the subtext takes its final revenge on us theatergoers.
This collection of plays inhabits a set designed by Brian Prather and coordinated by Joseph F. Martin. It’s a variation on the usual 10×10 set used on the smaller Mark St. Germain stage. Costumes for this production have been provided by Nicole Slaven, who helps show us not just people, but each person’s taste. Lucas Pawelski designed the lighting and he suits the view of each play to its vision. Alexander Sovronsky, as usual, provides provocative sound design, altering the mood for each piece.
Barrington Stage introduces us each winter to new playwrights with new purposes, and this year is a total winner, with each new play presenting someone unique and talented. It is always a pleasure finding the unexpected in an experience that enlarges our world, as this collection surely does.
The 10×10 New Play Festival plays on the Boyd-Quinson Stage in Pittsfield through Sunday, March 13.
