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The Play's the Thing
By Stephen Peithman
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Word for Word
New plays on truth, lies and language
Words are the playwright’s building blocks, but in
the plays featured this month, the use of words
expands to become the central focus.
Aditi Brennan Kapil’s Love Person is a love story told
in three languages—English, Sanskrit and American Sign
Language. This beautifully written and insightful work asks
whether we can truly express love through language, and
whether mere words can bridge the gap between two people.
Layered with mistaken identities and miscommunications,
Love Person becomes a kind of mystery play that reaches
beyond conventional ideas of attraction and sexual orientation.
Kapil’s characters yearn for deep emotional connections,
forcing them to navigate—often awkwardly—a landscape of
words and signs in their search for happiness. Three females,
one male. [Samuel French, www.samuelfrench.com]
A very different search is central to The Sequence, by Paul
Mullin. Renegade researcher Craig Venter has developed a
controversial “shotgun” technique for sequencing DNA, making
him a fortune in the private sector. At once, he becomes
both the most loved and hated figure of contemporary science.
Competition arises in the form of a folksy doctor named
Francis Collins, who wants to outdo Venter and be the first
to synthesize life itself. Their rivalry provides journalist Kellie
Silverstein with the biggest science story of all time—the
race to decipher the dynamic code of life hidden within the
human genome—while she runs a race with her own mortality.
In this remarkable play, Mullin manages to combine dramatic
tension with dark humor. The two scientists cheat, lie,
manipulate the public, and generally have a good time doing
so—sometimes with hilarious results. Two males, one female.
[Original Works Publishing, originalworksonline.com]
“A translaptation” is how David Ives describes his new version
of The Liar, the classic 17th-century comedy by French
playwright Pierre Corneille. In other words, it’s a “translation
with a heavy dose of adaptation” of the adventures of a
young and charming pathological liar named Dorante, who
comes to Paris and passes himself off as a war hero. When an
arranged marriage threatens to derail his romantic agenda,
his actions prompt a mistaken-identity involving the winsome
Clarice and her sharp-tongued friend Lucrece. As the
tangled web of lies continues, so do the plot twists, each
more complicated than the last. Ives has added subplots to
Corneille’s original, trimmed long speeches that might not
play today, merged two characters, and cut one character—
but maintained the dialogue’s rhymed verse. Purists may
object, but this should be a sure-fire audience pleaser. Five
males, 3-4 females. [published by Plays in Print/Smith & Kraus,
www.smithandkraus.com]
Constructing an effective full-length play is always a challenge,
but doing so in a play that lasts only 10 minutes is even
more daunting. Nevertheless, there are 50 ten-minute plays
by 50 New England playwrights in the new collection, Boston
Theater Marathon XI. There’s amazing variety here. Some
plays deal in absurdist humor, like Ryan Landry’s memorable
Joan, Joan, Joan and Hitler, in which Adolf conducts a group
therapy session for Joan Crawford, Joan Jett and Joan of Arc.
Many plays go for the slice-of-life approach, from dramatic
(Laura Crook’s But for the Grace of God, in which three women
at a playground discuss the challenges of motherhood) to
comic (Nina Mansfield’s Missed Exit, in which a family is taken
in unexpected directions by their car’s navigation system).
In Jack Neary’s Talkback, a playwright gets to speak with his
audience—to his great regret. Andrea Fleck Clardy’s poignant
Safely Assumed centers on a middle-aged shoplifter
who shares her secrets with a juvenile offender while waiting
for the probation officer. Scott Malia’s comic The Interview is
about a young man who gets more than he bargained for as
he chats up his date’s mother. And Stephen Faria’s Inheriting
Cleo deals with a man who, in escaping from his own relative’s
funeral, connects with a mourner across the hall. [Smith
& Kraus, www.smithandkraus.com]
Words are very much the centerpiece of John Kolvenbach’s
Gizmo Love, a spoof of the Quentin Tarantino-style of movies,
with each character exhibiting familiar traits and the snappy
dialogue full of killer lines. Ralph, a mild-mannered author,
has sold a property to a big-shot Hollywood producer who, it
turns out, only likes the bare bones of Ralph’s script. The producer
sends over a rewrite man, and then dispatches a couple
of hit men—shades of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—to
ensure the job is done properly, with unexpected results.
Kolvenbach has created a brilliantly comic story that sheds
light on the conflict between art and commerce in Hollywood
film-making. Four males. [Oberon Books/Dramatists Play
Service, www.dramatists.com]
www.stage-directions.com • August 2010 41