Message Moves In One Act Variety Of Strong, Thought-Provoking Plays Fill Bill At This Year’s Playwrights Forum Festival
The Playwrights Forum Festival Thursday and Friday, June 15 and 16 at the Civic Theatre
Amerciless and hilarious one act called “The Last Touchy-Feely Drama on the American Stage” has the greatest impact at the Civic’s annual Playwrights Forum Festival.
“Touchy-Feely” takes an axe to the plethora of victim plays that have been recently celebrated, and its wicked edge of black humor is a welcome antidote to the various shades of political correctness that have become de rigeur in the arts.
Written by Greg Gamble and Lee Howard, this satire skewers all manner of theatrical sacred cows and practices as a panel of announcers provide rapid-fire commentary during the slow unfolding of a father/ son reunion drama. Similar to the crew on Monday Night Football, the announcers anticipate and analyze every bit of dialogue, blocking as it happens before them. A very funny show, “Touchy-Feely” is reason enough to attend the festival, but there are other worthy plays as well.
“Area Code 212,” by New Yorker James Mirrione, is a clever variation on the late-night, waiting-for-a-bus, pay-phone-ringing theme: Should you pick up the phone?
Bryan Jackson, playing a solitary, conscientious man, does answer the ring and is drawn into a conversation with a suicidal woman. Gretchen Oyster does a fine job of using only her voice to seduce Jackson via the phone line as the audience begins to suspect her motives. Echos of Pinter and Beckett sound in the circuitous dialogue of this dark, shadowy piece, but the ending is frustrating and meaning elusive.
Jackson also does excellent work in another atmospheric play, “Atlantic Crossing,” by Jeffrey Embler, which takes place on an ocean liner in 1938. Playing a celebrated poet, Jackson has a chance encounter with a young, aspiring writer (Nikki Egan) traveling with her parents. The poet and his admirer have an intense, pre-dawn discussion about writing and the nature of writers’ lives. “You must enjoy being alone,” he warns her, maintaining conviction despite the challenges of his profession.
“Breathing In Isis,” the final play in the main competition, is not in the same league as the other entries. “Isis” is precisely the sort of victim drama that “Touchy-Feely” barbecues, but the problem is neither the type of play nor its family-trauma subject matter. Instead, the sluggish dialogue, slow pacing and predictable ending all rob the work of its potential power.
Brian Harnetiaux, Civic’s Playwright in Residence, supplied “Going Home,” which concludes his trio of plays on aging. A series of interweaving flashbacks effectively illustrate how Vesta Pierson (Daun Howser) and her family struggle to deal with the last few years of her life. Vesta has a strong relationship with her grand-daughter (Alison Letson), and they share a love for poetry, but not enough is done to show why poetry is important to them or to prepare the audience for an ending recitation of Theodore Roethke’s “The Waking.”
Finally, in the youth division, Klara Bowman and Emily Himmelright authored “Sacrifices Must Be Made,” a brisk, exciting, actionpacked playlet, full of swashbuckling characters, colorful costumes, epidemics, healing herbs, kidnapping and forest chases.