Freakshow

Play #46 - Freakshow by Carson Kreitzer

It's sort of difficult to describe this play. It's not easy to discern a plot per se. But the characters are all members of a traveling freak show run by Mr. Flip, and headlined by Amalia - a woman with no arms or legs. She is looked after by Judith who, when she was young, was the hit of the freak show as the dog faced girl. Nearby is the Human Salamander, perpetually in his tank, and the Pinhead, always singing away in his cage. Amalia is having an affair with Matthew, who ran away from home to be with her, but she is really in love with the Pinhead. Eventually, a girl named Louisa also joins the show after she falls in love with the Human Salamander. Time are changing as we follow this collection of misfits - people are less interested in the freak shows than they once were. Judith decides to leave to return home where she will take care of her sister, and Matthew leaves because Amalia tells him to. Louisa originally wants the Human Salamander to run away with her, but eventually she decides to come up with a fortune telling act so that they can be together on the road. In the end, however, Amalia and Mr. Flip are really all the other has left, and the Pinhead burns the show to the ground with a pack of matches left behind by Matthew.

Rather than a play about events, this feels more like a play about seeing people as people. It's a play about love - most of it unrequited. It's a play about finding where you belong and who you belong with. And, as you might expect, the freaks may well be the most human of us all. But still, this play would be quite a feat to stage if one were to go literal with it - in particular the tank of water would be tricky. 

One Hundred Women

Play #45 (Make-up #12) - One Hundred Women by Kristina Halvorson

Another little ten-minute play. This one is about roommates Kelly and Nina. They have had a good rhythm for the last two years - they're there when they need each other, but they don't get in each other's way. But lately, Kelly hasn't been around as much, since she's been seeing Christian. And Nina is finding it more and more frustrating to feel so pushed aside. It's really Nina's journey that we follow, as she's the one who gets a handful of monologues in which she gets to explain her loneliness and her search for understanding. In the end, she explains that she has a room inside herself where all the important women in her life live, and where all the versions of herself live too. And even though she wishes some other self would come to the forefront, it always seems to be the romantic. And that romantic Nina just lets those women fall away from her when a man comes along. And though she may have a more meaningful or deeper relationship with them, she always lets them go. It's a sort of false either/or that this play sets up - as if a friend having a relationship means that the friend is no longer a friend. I love the room of women within her, but I don't buy this sort of built in man-loss thing. It just seems hopelessly reductive. Still, her last monologue about the room might not be bad for a story piece. <shrug>

Hard-Boiled

Play #44 (Make-up #11) - Hard-Boiled by Deborah Lynn Frockt

Just a little ten minute play about a trio of young lawyers: Jackson, Mickey and Kramer (the lone woman). All products of the top law programs, all hired at the same time by the same big law firm, but tonight, one year after their hiring, they are out celebrating that one of them was made a junior associate: Kramer. The celebrating is going just fine until Mickey's jealousy rears its ugly head and he spouts off that Kramer only got the promotion because she's so hot. He storms off, Jackson admits that she's attractive, and he leaves too. It seems it's lonely at the top - especially for a woman.

I and You

Play #43 - I and You by Lauren Gunderson

Okay...I loved this play. Just, really loved this play. For the most part, it's a sweet, simple interaction between two high school kids: Caroline, who is out of school because of a long term illness, and Anthony, who shows up to work on a report about Walt Whitman with her that is due the next day. She is prickly and on guard in the beginning, not sure why he's there, not wanting to let any vulnerability show. And he is eager - he likes school, he likes Whitman, he likes jazz, he likes basketball. In fact, he had just come from a basketball game before he arrived at Caroline's house. Oddly, the game ended suddenly when one of the players collapsed on the court, dying suddenly. He didn't want to tell Caroline this, since death is something that she has to face pretty much all the time, but it does come out. As the play progresses, they, of course, become friends. They learn about each other's passions and dreams, they agree that Walt Whitman is pretty much a badass. They even get into a we bit o' kissin', as teenagers are wont to do. It's really a very sweet, straightforward play, but the final moment... I can't give it away, because it's too great and awesome... I really can't say much about it. But man, I just really loved it. The end came out of nowhere, but was really perfect and well earned by everything that came before. I would love to work with some students on this play - I think they would just eat it up.

Lynette Has Beautiful Skin

Play #42 (Make-up #10) - Lynette Has Beautiful Skin by Jane Anderson

In this ten-minute play, Larry, Bobby and Lynette are out at a pizza parlor. Bobby and Lynette are a couple, and Larry is trying to tell them about the new girl he has been seeing - Judy. However, he isn't trying too hard to tell and they aren't trying too hard to listen. Bobby and Lynette do a lot more messing with each other's food, wrestling with each other, giggling, flirting, etc. They are only occasionally interested in what's happening with Larry - usually about the time that he says he should probably head home. But as Larry tries to get perspective on his young relationship, he forces Bobby and Lynette to reflect on the early days of theirs, which seems to leave them a little put out in the end. It's really a sort of problematic relationships as far as I can tell, since it mostly involves Bobby doing things that are designed to annoy Lynette, and Lynette telling him to stop. They remind me more of playful monkeys than of people who have been in a relationship for five years. Perhaps they realize that? I don't know.

The Last Time We Saw Her

Play #41 (Make-up #9) - The Last Time We Saw Her by Jane Anderson

This is a little ten-minute play in which Fran comes in to talk to her boss Hunter about the fact that she is gay. He tells her he has no opinion about this either way, but she continues: she would like to tell everyone in her division so that she can stop feeling like she's hiding something. The conversation then becomes about why she would bother telling anyone. Fran describes the distress she experiences, always fearing that the truth might slip out. Hunter poses increasingly odd and inappropriate questions, attempting to demonstrate that there is no real reason to discuss her sex life in the work place. What he doesn't understand, however, is that what she wants to discuss is her life, not her sex life. She has a partner of eight years who she refers to as her roommate. She hides from her coworkers, she feels like she is unable to be who she is. In the end, she is completely frustrated by Hunter's blunt, absurd questions about her physical pleasure and attractions. The play is a pretty effective little snapshot of the disconnect that occurs in this kind of conversation. Why does anyone need to know you're gay? Well... why does anyone need to know your wife is your wife, that your children are your children? The question is about identity, not about sexual behavior, and it is the identity that is being swept under the rug, using sex as the excuse.

The Internationalist

Play #40 - The Internationalist: An Elusive Comedy by Anne Washburn

This play is sort of difficult to read, and I don't mean that in the emotional sense that I have mentioned in some of the previous scripts. I just mean that , mechanically, it's difficult to read, because a good portion of the dialogue is in a made up language. The play is about a man named Lowell who has come to an imaginary Eastern European country to work in this office that does some sort of financial or marketing work. Most of the people speak at least a little English, some speak it better than he does, but he is the only one who does not speak the native language of the country, so when they all start taking off in their native tongue he and the audience are completely lost. Not much happens in the course of this play. He has a sort of brief, confusing relationship with Sara, the woman who does the filing at the office. He sort of meets the people he works with, but a bit of a crisis occurs when one of their coworkers disappears at a key moment, so he gets left out of the loop as they scramble. While he is sight-seeing, he comes upon an old woman in the catacombs of an old church who speaks no English, and it almost seems as if she mugs him, or maybe she's just a vision, or maybe they share a supernatural encounter of some kind? The events of the play are a little unclear, but I think that might be some of the point. The world is confusing, the audience will feel out of sorts - strangers in a strange land. That feeling of standing among a bunch of people who all understand each other, and having no way to participate - it's a frustrating but very relatable experience. And I do think it would end up being a sort of funny, sort of melancholy production in performance. But man, it would be damn near impossible to memorize!