Open Wardrobes

On Saturday, after finally getting a little sleep following my all-night writing session, I took some time to relax. It was funny knowing that while my piece of the festival was finished, back at the space actors and directors had just gotten started taking these 6 scripts and bringing them to life. I helped Kelly clean around the house, we went out to Tea (I did not do any writing), and all the while the actors and directors blocked, memorized, rehearsed, and (in the case of my play!) worked on such things as juggling and stage combat. A little after 7 PM on Saturday Kelly and I returned to the theater which was all ready for the world premier of half a dozen shows that hadn't existed 24-hours earlier. That alone is, I think, extremely cool. So, here what the pieces that emerged from this marathon of creativity, keeping in mind that this was a 24-hour festival and as such none of the plays were expected to be 100% perfect and polished:

The Duck by Brady Bergeson, directed by Joe Hendren
My favorite of the plays outside my own, a husband and wife encounter a man at the bus stop who, as it turns out, is a duck. The woman accepts his duckness (is that a word?), while the husband sees just a man with a green umbrella (the duck's plumage, of course). It was funny and clever and my kind of absurdism. It also contained my favorite line of the night: the frank revelation, "I'm a duck."

Circus of Fate by T. James Belich, directed by Janan Terpstra
Is it self-serving to review your own play? I was, to be sure, a little nervous when it came time for my play. When I woke up Saturday morning and my play came flooding back, I had a moment of self-doubt about the piece. What had I been thinking? Would any of it actually work??? So I was very pleased to see what my director and cast had accomplished with an admittedly peculiar script. Loosely based on the Trojan War, my play featured the juggler, clown and prophet Cassandra as she tried to warn Diana off a perilous course. Becka Linder, who played Cassandra, was absolutely excellent and brought a wonderful quirky tone to the character I hadn't pictured. I love it when an actor does something completely unexpected with a character which turns out to be perfect. The parts I was not sure about? They worked. The audience? They laughed (despite a darker ending). I was quite pleased.

Jen Dobray by Geoff Herbach, directed by Laurie Swigart
Where The Duck was my kind of absurdism, this one sadly was not. A boy's Polish mother decides to leave him, making the Bagel Lady his new mother. The Bagel Lady gives the boy things to eat that are not bagels, or even edible. The boy's step-sister calls him Pumpkin Head. Everyone is happy at the end. This play had its moments, and funny ones, but in the end I was left wondering, "Huh?" The actors did an excellent job of selling the parts they were given and so it wasn't a bad play, but certainly for the concept it went on a little long.

Lovely Day by Josiah Laubenstein, directed by Alissa Blaeser
A much put-upon wife has to deal with both her husband and sister-in-law (who has moved in) who demand everything and give nothing and are far too much alike. A nice relationship piece which left you wanting to throttle the husband and sister as much as the wife did. Good and solid.

Here Today, Tomorrow, Next Week, Next Year... by David Hanzal, directed by Kate Elise
A highly successful Jeopardy contestant (think a female Ken Jennings) falls in love with the producer's assistant. I know David from Lakeshore's last 10-minute festival where he directed the Old West play I was in, and it was in fact David who recommended me to Heritage for this festival, so I feel a little bad that I just couldn't get myself to like this play. I was never quite sure where it was going, and I thought it lacked in any real conflict. Kudos to David for trying to condense a long-term relationship between the characters (the time span is over a couple of years) into 10 minutes, but the ending lacked punch as I didn't really believe the struggle of the main characters to get there.

Divorce Sweater by Stephanie Wilbur-Ash, directed by Stephen Moore
A story of a husband and wife on the rocks, who each visits their respective (and divorced) parent for consolation after leaving their spouse. The advice they get is not what they expect: the parents seem thrilled to induct them into the world of the divorcee, even giving each the family divorce sweater. In the end the husband and wife run out the door, and presumably back to each other. This, I think, was a solid script underneath that suffered from the time limits of the festival, as the actors were not 100% solid in their lines, many of which required split-second delivery to work as intended. It would certainly benefit from a longer rehearsal period for the performers to get the character nuances and timing down. As such it felt a little flat, but I think that was more due to the challenges of putting something together in 24 hours rather than anything else.



So, there it is. The product of over 30 artists in a 24-hour window. The beauty of it is that everyone threw themselves into it and no one was afraid to take chances. I hope I wasn't too hard on the other performers or writers above, given the extreme limitations imposed. I see a festival like this as similar to the Fringe: the point is to try something new, and while not everything is going to succeed, it will all be new and different.