[NEohioPAL] Review of "One-Act Festival" at FAA

[Bob Abelman]

Fine Arts Association's 'One-Acts' hit the spot

 

Bob Abelman

News-Herald, Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times, Geauga Times Courier

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

This review appeared in the News-Herald 4/8/11

 

Watching a collection of one-act plays can be a lot like chowing down exclusively on hors d'oeuvres-a tasty but hardly satisfying experience.  Not so with the 15th annual one-act festival at Willoughby's Fine Arts Association, titled Modern Twist.  This panoply of dramatic canapés makes for a filling and gratifying evening's entertainment.

                                                    

Director and festival founder Ann Hedger selected lesser known but intriguing works from five renowned 20th century playwrights who represent the more mainstream theatrical food groups.  Each play is efficiently staged by Hedger, nicely appointed by scenic designer Paul Gatzke, and marvelously performed.

 

The evening begins with A Matter of Husbands, a two-hander written by Ferenc Molnar in 1923.  It is a comedy of manners that finds an earnest young wife in the drawing room of the glamorous actress she suspects is having an affair with her husband.  True to formula, the confrontation is casual, the conflict lacks casualties and the scenario plays out in predictable fashion.

 

What makes this play so captivating is that the unfazed diva's plausible denial is a performance piece so richly layered with reverse psychology and female cunning that the wife finds herself apologizing for her foolishness as she exits.  What makes this play so engaging is Jordan Renee Malin and Nancy Shimonek Brooks.  These are two superb actors who listen and respond with such fluidity that they complete each other's thoughts while having the discipline not to complete each other's sentences.    

 

This is followed by 27 Wagons Full of Cotton, penned by Tennessee Williams in 1946.  As with so many of Williams' works (A Streetcar Named Desire comes to mind), this Mississippi Delta drama depicts a brutal coupling between a delicate and irresistibly sensual young thing and her insensitive counterpart.  Here, Jake is an abusive, down-on-his-luck cotton gin owner who burns down a rival's business.  His rival, Silva, seeks revenge by ravaging Jake's wife, Flora.  

 

Robert McCoy and Bob Kilpatrick are riveting as the dangerous men lured by Flora's pheromones.  They mark their territory and define their characters' base nature by simply walking onto the stage, adding texture and tension as the play progresses.  Angela Savochka is convincingly naïve and fragile, but she does not secrete sultriness.  As such, her Flora comes across as a sympathetic victim of what Jake and Silva bring to the dance rather than the knowing participant Williams intended.  

 

Although playwright George Kaufman wrote for the Marx Brothers in the 1920s and 1930s, his drawing room comedy The Still Alarm calls to mind Laurel and Hardy.   Set in the bedroom of a hotel, which is on fire, two well mannered Englishmen casually conduct business as usual as flames rise by the minute.  

 

Oblivious is how Stan Laurel responded to Oliver Hardy's bluster, and oblivious is how the delightful Mark DePompei and Carl Simoncic react to the crisis at hand.  Don Knepper, as the bellboy, and Brendan Sandham and David Malinowski, as the firemen, work a bit too hard for the laughs that master craftsman Kaufman delivers on a platter.  This silly one-act is a welcome relief from the tension that precedes it and the powerful drama that follows. 

 

Hello, Out There was written by William Saroyan in 1942.  An itinerant gambler is arrested for rape and jailed in a small Texas town. The only one who hears his plea of innocence and call for justice is a young, lonely girl who cooks and cleans for the prisoners.

 

The plot is simple and the action is limited, but the dialogue is poignant and the performances by David Malinowski and Mary Britta Shirring are brilliant. Their desperation and desires are palpable.  In a marvelous, existential moment at the end of the play, the girl replaces the gambler in the cell and calls out the same despairing words he cried at its beginning: "Hello out there."

 

Pullman Car Hiawatha by Thornton Wilder takes us on a metaphorical journey by train through the American landscape of the 1930s and is the most ambitious and abstract effort of the evening.  The play introduces techniques Wilder would use in future plays (Our Town, for instance): a virtually bare stage; the suspension of conventional time; the planes of life and death; and a sensible, omnipresent stage manager to help progress the plot.  

 

Brendan Sandham's portrayal of the down-to-earth narrator is a bit too reminiscent of a fast-talking pitchman, but he nicely facilitates the storytelling in this piece.  The play is teeming with warmth and humanity, which flows from the stage thanks to a very talented ensemble cast.  Maria R. Fitzgerald's performance as the Insane Woman is absolutely captivating.  Look for Mark DePompei in the shadows after his character's wife passes away in transit.  

Unlike many other evenings of one-act plays, this one is something to feast on. In fact, it leaves you hungry for more. 

 

Modern Twist: 15th Annual One-Act Festival runs through April 16 at the Fine Arts Association's Corning Auditorium, 38660 Mentor Avenue, Willoughby.  For information or tickets, which are $20 to $22, call 440-951-7500 or visit  www.fineartsassociation.org.
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