A Wave of One-Act Plays at Artists’ Exchange

With all of the theater choices Rhode Island has to offer, it’s surprisingly difficult to find something fresh and unknown. While the movie studios tend to produce much-anticipated new blockbuster releases from June through September, the theaters tend to churn out revivals and light, familiar fare. Kevin Broccoli’s monologapaloozas aside, it’s a chore to find original work being presented on our local stages after the solstice, and Lenny Schwartz’s Daydream Theater tends to lie low during the hot months so we’re left with Cranston’s Artists’ Exchange to keep feeding us new and interesting original pieces to explore. The first wave of the 8^th Annual One Act Play Festival kicked off July 12^th and a second wave of new works commences on the 26^th. In case you’re not familiar yet with the new arrangements, Artists’ Exchange currently runs two different spaces on the same side of the street on Rolfe Square (Broccoli happens to have work running in both simultaneously, expanding his dramatic hegemony further south) and the One Acts occupy the newer black box at #82.

This year’s Wave One offerings are a mixed bag, as these festivals tend to be, and are directed in turn by Kate Lester and AE mainstay Tom Chace. As new works with spare production values, some of these pieces tend to come across as workshop experiments rather than fully realized plays, but the beauty of one acts is that they are somewhat disposable and if you don’t like a particular script, you don’t have to wait long for something completely different to come along that may better suit your particular mood. Kay Poiro’s Family Business is mostly fluff and comes across as a one-note high school skit. It’s a Cinderella epilogue right out of Federal Hill with two amped-up wannabe princesses shaking down what they believe to be the maker of the famous glass slippers in order to find the whereabouts of the elusive Godmother (get it?). Livi Yeaw delivers some interesting accent work as the babushka-like glassmaker, but nothing can save this piece from being anything other than an idea that could have been safely omitted.

The following piece is the evening’s highlight and the most fully realized work, written by the aforementioned Kevin Broccoli. Directed by and featuring a radiant Kate Lester, Blanche is Tennessee Williams fan fiction, imagining a sequel to Streetcar Named Desire, where Blanche is institutionalized and clearly delusional and paranoid. It opens with a dark and surreal questioning of Blanche by (supposedly) a hospital employee asking her name over and over again until she is not sure herself if her answers are correct. After a poignant and beautifully delivered monologue of kaleidoscopic remembrance, Blanche is visited by her sister Stella (skillfully handled by Christine Treglia), precipitating a complete breakdown in everything that Blanche (and we) ever thought about the events of the original play. Sadly, Jeff Pothier’s lighting plot is patchy and some of Lester’s best moments are lost in shadow (an issue that seems inherent to the new space – the recently produced Speed the Plow suffered from some of the same issues.)

The first half closes with an amusing piece by Ben Jolivet titled, Why Don’t We Just Play Salad Bowl? Chace’s direction falls a little short, keeping the action less dynamic than it could be, but Salad Bowl does elicit some genuine laughs and plays not unlike a particularly bitchy episode of Friends. David Kane’s over-the-top performance as a newcomer to a particularly nasty interpersonal triangle is stereotypical, but still very enjoyable, and Meg Taylor-Roth delivers her most solid performance of the evening.

The second half features only two pieces (an originally intended play was removed from the bill shortly before opening) – Ray Battocchio’s Goodie Bags and Mark Harvey Levine’s A Fit of Pique. The former is the type of piece that seems crafted to be an audience favorite, featuring a sweet grandmotherly figure (played with a winking grace by Mary DeBerry) who one-ups a thug in a bus station. It’s not particularly clever, but it’s filled with snappy one-liners that DeBerry delivers one after the other and is directed with skill by Lester employing the evening’s complete roster of performers at one point in order to create the appropriate bustling atmosphere. It’s another one-joke script, but a harmless piece of fun that stands out as the evening’s next best work.

Pique is a bizarre affair that could only have come at the end due to the physical exertions required of Taylor-Roth. The play explores the question of society’s obsession with women’s physical appearance at the expense of character as a couple, Annie and Rich, attempt a normal evening out at dinner accompanied by Annie’s sister, Lisa. Lisa’s sole purpose is to continually annoy Annie, who can only maintain her attractiveness in a state of pique. If not constantly badgered, Annie turns into a raving, contorting, homicidal freak who is convinced that no one could possibly appreciate her. In this case, her suspicions are correct and while the message is painfully clear, the execution is somewhat off-putting all around. A good idea, however, and exactly the sort of thing that new works in a festival setting are meant to be – rough, amusing and ready for refinement.

The first wave of Artists’ Exchange 8^th Annual One Acts Festival is an uneven affair, but certainly worth exploring, if for no other reason than its originality. Broccoli’s Blanche alone elevates the evening and is worth the price of admission by itself. Wave Two promises even more new treasures to come. Wave One runs July 12-21, Thursdays through Saturdays at 7pm and Sundays at 2pm. Call 401-490-9475 or visit http://www.artists-exchange.org/theatre82 for more details.