Passages (review)

Spoilers ahoy!

Theatre Unleashed is a company committed to periodically putting on a collection of ten minute plays, as well as really extremely high quality full productions.

Passages marks their latest such, and it pretty much captures what I like and dislike most about the whole tendency these days to mount such mini-plays. The problem lies in the fact so few ideas can really be sustained and explored adequately in a mere ten minutes. Those that do, most usually end up as little more than funny skits, but rarely receive the kind of rigorous rehearsal effort required to pour so much into so little.

Here are the five that make up Passages:

Love for Beginners by Cesar Abella and directed by Kire Horton is a nice idea--a personal romantic/sexual odyssey of a nice young man unlucky in love--performed by some good actors (Jahel Corban Caldera, Michael Lutheran, Roger Weiss, Stepy Kamei, Lacy Green). All the
elements were there, including some very humanity (as opposed to plot or prop or coincidence)-based humor and genuine charm. But it came across as too short. Mind you Abella also wrote a play TU will be doing for this year's Hollywood Fringe so it looks like we'll get to see what they're really capable next month!

Pretty Face by Jenn Scuderi Crafts, directed by Sammi Lappin, is frankly quite a bit more existential but could easily fit into the ten minutes allotted. But it seemed under-rehearsed. Very much so. With only ten minutes to fill, and two characters, every single note needs to achieve something close to perfection. Woman (Kalyna Leigh) and her Reflection (Heather Smith) weren't in perfect physical sync from the start, which made the whole (clever, potentially very moving) piece feel off from the start. And so it proceeded. Lovely idea, with seemingly good performers but they didn't achieve what seemed on the page.

Home by Jim Martyka and directed by Jase Lindgren was another that just needed more time. Bill (Paul Thomas Arnold) playing the father slipping into dementia did a fine job, but had a huge advantage--his character literally lives only in the one eternal moment of now. Michelle (Katie May Leo Porter) had to carry and convey the entire history of this relationship, and do it in ten minutes. The playlet doesn't give her enough to do it, not because the writing is poor (far from it!) but there simply isn't the space. It is as if someone reduced a full sonnet into a haiku.

Restless by Bobby McGlynn and directed by Carey Matthews faces this problem even more so, but offers a more tantalizingly wild glimpse of what should be a much longer and more complex play.  Theresa Stroll, Graydon Schlichter and Mike Gerbi give us this wild ride of a blind date from (and into) Hell with a dizzying flurry of imagination--but it wasn't enough. Nowhere near. 

Good Morning Princess by Brandi June and directed by Cameron Stark gives us something of a delicious take on a fairy tale with Margaret Glaccum as a princess who has slept for a hundred years and David Foy Bauer the prince who's come to wake her. This was fun and fit into the format of the ten minutes very nicely indeed--but does feel like a (very good) sketch rather than a play. Like most of the works in this group it makes fir a nice little show, with some clearly talented people performing for you.

Passages plays at the Belfry Theater at 11031 Camarillo St, North Hollywood, CA 91602 Thursdays through Saturdays at 8pm until May 23, 2015. You can make reservations by calling (818) 849-4039 or clicking HERE. Tickets are $10.

Note: I saw but failed to complete my review in time for the previous Ten-Minute Play Showcase by TU, Friends with Penalties, which showed a wider range IMHO. But I apologize for that.

Boy Gets Girl (review)

Spoilers ahoy!

It sounds like the plot of a Lifetime movie. Here's the publicity blurb for Theater Unleashed's production of Boy Gets Girl by Rebecca Gilman:

What started as an innocent blind date has quickly turned into a dangerous obsession. For Theresa, an accomplished journalist, her life is now spiraling chaotically out of control as she experiences a violent terror that’s all too familiar.

Had I been unfamiliar with TU, the blurb alone would not have been enough. It does seem to echo what a friend of mine calls "victim porn" wherein some innocent is targeted by a psycho and finally ends up killing said psycho in self-defense. Slasher films lite.

Such was far from what I got when the lights came up on stage.

Instead, an awkward blind date begins. One that might just have been an opening scene in a romantic comedy. At the time I managed to think that very clever. It made me share the bewildering flesh-crawl as events unfolded--as Theresa (Ivy Khan) clearly felt no connection with Tony (Jim Martyka), sought to let  him down politely, then found herself the target of a stalker. 

Later, I realized how profound that delicate trick the playwright had pulled off. She did more than make us feel viscerally surprised at the plot. She invoked the exact memes and ideas that feed the horror of events.

She made us Tony's accomplices. His attempts to connect with Theresa at first seem harmless, a bit awkward, obnoxious the way deeply lonely folks sometimes are. We almost wish Theresa would give him a second chance. Certainly we understand why some others do--even though the guy rings warning bells of many tones and volume, even at first. An emotional piece of judo that has left me very impressed!

The script also never, ever slips into stereotype, even while the essential plot of a stalker plays out as we've come to seemingly expect. The constant flowers delivered, the endless voice mails, the escalation to threats, the calling the police (Kate Dyler) and so on. Instead of formula, however, the whole thing feels utterly real--not least because the range of humanity remains naturalistic and (even more importantly) individual. Theresa is never an ingenue nor does she ever become an action heroine. Likewise, none of the men in her life are heroes. They are friends, to be sure.

Her boss Howard (Bobby McGlynn), fellow writer Mercer (Eric Stachura), the subject of an article she's writing (Eric Cire)--all offer support. None can solve her problem. No one can "solve" it unless her stalker makes a mistake and is caught. Every single one of them try, though. More, they don't simply offer help. They also cross lines, make mistakes, sometimes fail to understand--and when a couple of them begin to really understand, that creeps them out most of all. Because they seem themselves in Tony!

And if we're brutally honest, so can we. In part because the writer led us to that point, but also because the cast did such a splendid job overall (although the lion's share of praise goes of Khan as Theresa).

That a fair amount of comedy pops up in the play also makes the grinding psychological tension (like a death of a thousand cuts) both more palatable as well as more chilling--because Theresa's plight never lets up. Even the most overtly funny character, Harriet (Sammi Lappin) in the end is just another match lit against the encroaching darkness. Because real life doesn't always have a happy ending. Sometimes the bad guy gets away. The only way to survive is total retreat and surrender. Sometimes. No matter what we want, or how unfair all that seems.

Such is the very unpalatable, powerful truth this production gives us. In a way, Theresa suffers worse than physical violence. She comes to see herself as nothing but a thing, an object of desire as opposed to a mind or soul.

Worse, she cannot forget that for some--even those not violent, not insane, not obsessed--that is all she will ever be. All she can be.

(I will admit though the scene shifts seemed to take forever...!)

Boy Gets Girl plays Thursdays through Saturdays at 8pm at the Belfry Stage (upstairs from the Crown Theatre) 11031 Camarillo St., North Hollywood, CA 91602.  Tickets are $20. You can make reservations by calling (818) 849-4039 or emailing reservations@theatreunleashed.org.