GEEK!

Play # 53 - GEEK! by Crystal Skillman

This production is a bit of a monster - it seems like it would be extremely difficult to stage, but as the playwright says in her introduction, "GEEK!, for sure, is a play all about the imagination - have fun imagining how this play moves on stage! Yay, theater!" GEEK! reminded me a lot of She Fights Monsters, but if possible, it may be even more ambitious. I mean, there are 32 characters, and it is written to be performed with as few as six actors... two of whom are the consistent lead characters. Whew! You have two cosplay girls - Danya and Honey - who are desperately trying to make it through the last hour of this huge convention to meet the creator of Dante's Fire. This is an (made up for the play) anime universe that they and their third cohort Ellen have been reenacting on camera - attempting to recreate every moment of the story in their own way. Ellen, Honey's sister, just killed herself, and Danya and Honey feel like they owe it to her to get to creator Samagashi and give her the videos that they made together. This is, of course, an easier-said-than-done situation, as the girls meet with resistance at pretty much every turn. There are evil guards and steampunks and cruel devil cat women and Timekeepers and Minotaurs and Goth Princesses and Miss Cosy and mean girls... it's pretty much every obstacle possible, all crammed into a relatively short play. The action jumps back and forth between the real action of the girls moving through the convention and the fantastic imaginary world of cosplay in which so many of the characters agree to live. It tests the bounds of reality and theatricality, and, with the right geeked-out production team, this show could really be an amazing amount of fun. There is a real love for the cosplay culture baked into this script, and I think that a similar love would be really helpful in the director and designers. Creating the scale of the con world within the scope of what most of us usually have for a theatrical budget... it would be a pretty great challenge for the right team of people. Honestly, I don't think I would be that person. The learning curve to get me up to speed on cosplay, anime, manga, etc... would just be a little too steep. But man, would I love to see it lovingly performed! Or maybe I just need a really bitchin' dramaturg on my team? Because the structure alone is the kind of theatrical challenge that I think defines the most exciting contemporary theatre. There's a sincere  heart at the center of these girls' journey, and a deep well of imagination in the telling of it. And there's Squeaker. I want to play Squeaker.

Mission to Mars

Play #52 - Mission to Mars by Jeanne Beckwith

This is a disturbing little short play about, as the title suggests, a mission to Mars that has experienced some problems. Major Marty and Lieutenant Spike are currently on watch while their crew member Jane is in hibernation, and their other crew member Ralph is unexpectedly dead and frozen in the cargo hold. They were supposed to be followed by a maintenance module, but it is already quite late, and they haven't had contact with Earth in three weeks. Things are starting to get more than a little desperate. Marty tries to hold out hope and keep things together with procedures and rules, while Spike chooses a more cynical view of the situation, wondering what could have happened on Earth, since everything seems alright with their ship. They go through their checklists, and they argue about the what ifs, until finally, they decide to just keep going about their business until they just can't anymore. 

Just reading this script made me feel claustrophobic. Have you seen Gravity? Done well, this play could probably have some of the feeling of the witty banter portions of that movie. The stakes would have to be very carefully calibrated for this script to work. Done poorly, it could just be two guys ribbing each other while moving in semi-slow motion. 

So Tell Me About This Guy

Play #51 - So Tell Me About This Guy by Dolores Whiskeyman

This little ten-minute play is sort of frothy, and a little bit brilliant. Marla and Angie are having drinks while Marla tells Angie about her new relationship with Michael... sort of. In amusing 20-something gossip form, there is barely a single sentence finished: "He's so - he's just so, you know." And oh... she knows. Little bits and pieces about the relationship fall out, but more than anything, it just seems to be a quick exchange about relationship expectations - and how easily we are willing to succumb to them even when it might not be the best idea.

Be Aggressive

Play #50 - Be Aggressive by Annie Weisman

You know what's sad? This play is in a collection of plays, and on the back of the book... the title of the play is spelled wrong. I don't get how they let that happen. <sigh>

Anyway...

The action of Be Aggressive orbits the impending project to build a new freeway through a coastal development. Phil, father of Laura (17) and Hannah (11), is a consultant working on the project. Judy, mother of Leslie (17), is a leader of the movement opposing the construction. But what really sets the plot in motion is the death of Laura and Hannah's mother, the news of which kicks off the play. She was hit by a car while running along the construction zone, leaving her family to fend for themselves. Laura wants to go on working at the smoothie shop and attending cheer practice, but her father and Hannah keep trying to foist all of her mother's responsibilities onto her: she should make dinner, she should drive Hannah to Hebrew school, she should buy the groceries, she should always be there - ALWAYS. It's an awful lot of responsibility for a 17-year-old girl. So, when one of her fellow cheerleaders - Leslie - suggests that they sneak off to attend an advanced cheerleading seminar on the other side of the country, she is willing to go to almost any lengths to make that happen. When the girls take off, their parents are left to wonder, to worry, to collide from opposite sides of the freeway rift... but none of the issues end up mattering all that much in the end. The freeway dispute reaches a settlement, the girls come home (it turns out the brochure Leslie had was... a little outdated), life goes on. The crisis of Laura's mother's death set everything off kilter for a while, but a new normal has to establish itself. It just takes time to find it. And before it came along, it felt like it would never arrive, but it did nonetheless.

This is an interesting, energetic story about a search for identity in a world that has stopped making sense. The pace of the storytelling is a little frenetic, which I find appealing and could be a cool challenge in production. I might consider using some of these scenes or one of the monologues for work with undergraduates - it's definitely close to home for that age group. 

Chagrin Falls

Play #49 - Chagrin Falls by Mia McCullough

This is a thoughtful, melancholy piece that McCullough wrote because she was interested in looking at the people who do the things that are necessary but unpleasant in our society: people who slaughter animals for food, work in prisons, or serve in the military. The play takes place in the fictional town of Chagrin Falls, OK, which is home to one of the most active cattle slaughterhouses in the country as well as a death row prison. The bulk of the action takes place in the bar of one of the local inns, owned and run by Irene. The regular customers that we meet are Riley, who just retired after thirty years at the slaughterhouse; Henry, who is a chipper and naive guard at the prison with a pregnant wife; John, the town reverend; and Thaddeus, a disillusioned and surly guard at the prison whose mother has been dying of cancer for the last five years. Thaddeus is also having a relationship with Irene, who used to be his mother's best friend. Patrice, a young Vietnamese-American graduate student/reporter shows up to cover and witness the upcoming execution of Jonas Caldwell, who raped and murdered an eight-year-old girl. While in town, she interviews all of the other characters, trying to get a full picture of lives that are surrounded by death. Of course, most of the characters don't look at their lives that way. Irene is just doing her job providing services for people who come for the executions, Thaddeus is just doing his job when he has to tie down the extremities of the condemned, Henry is just doing his job guarding men in cages, Riley was just doing his job, slaughtering cows, Reverend John is just doing his job providing what comfort and counsel he can. But Patrice is more than she claims to be, as we discover when she does get a brief audience with Jonas. It turns out that she was on his jury, and she feels guilty for sending a man to his death. In the end, Jonas is dead, Riley offers to come work for Irene at the Inn and offers his house (haunted for him by the memory of his ex-wife) for her to live in, Thaddeus buries his mother and skips town leaving Henry to take his spot on the tie-down team for the first time and leaving Irene alone. There is a cost to staring death in the face every day - a cost that most of us will never have to face. But the people in this play carry that weight. And even Patrice, who has now witnessed an execution, will carry some of that weight with her forever.

The play poses tough issues of responsibility and the ugliness that we count on but usually don't have to face. And there are also a couple of pretty good men's monologues, so that could be useful to someone one of these days. Overall, I found the play ambitious and sensitive, shining a light on pieces of American life that most of us like to pretend aren't there. And there are moments, even in the depths of these rather bleak lives, that ascend to poetry, and that's pretty important too.

Love Poem #98

Play #48 - Love Poem #98 by Regina Taylor

The characters in this tiny little play are Emmanuel, Mary the whore and Mary the wife (played by the same woman). There's a film noir feel to the whole thing, with first Emmanuel narrating, then his dramatic encounter with Mary the whore, followed by Mary the wife's narration. There is mystery and excitement to Mary the whore - she is covered in scars from her various lovers, she has been marked by life and when she sings, we can't help but hear the scars in her voice. Emmanuel is transfixed by her. Mary the wife, on the other hand, is faithful and reliable, but does not hold the mysterious appeal. But it turns out that Mary the wife has secrets of her own, and perhaps a little more in common with Mary the whore than her dear husband might think. This would be a great little piece to use when discussing atmosphere and genre with a class.

Flights

Play #47 - Flights by Susan Cameron

A sort of charming little ten-minute play about two old flames - Maggie and Carl - who run into each other at the airport. As they chat, they relate stories of past encounters, divorces, common friends, etc. The little secret that comes out - and only to the audience - is that Maggie had called Carl's home a few years ago when she was drunk and sad about an affair gone wrong, and that she had called to confess her love for him. But since then, they've moved on, and there's nothing left between them... or is there? And then, well, off they go to catch their respective flights. It's a sort of wistful piece, and the setting works nicely, with that sense of not really being anywhere that comes with being in an airport.