Download a PDF - Stage Directions Magazine

By Stephen Peithman |The Play’s the ThingReaching for Something DifferentPlays that encourage actors and the art form to stretchTheatre has never been a “one-size-fits-all” proposition,and there is always a need for imaginative plays that willchallenge actors, directors and audiences. This month’scomedies and dramas do exactly that.In Avery Crozier’s Eat the Runt, a job applicant fora grants manager position is flown in for a series ofinterviews. He’s whisked from office to office, and bossto boss, in semi-improvised scenes that verge on theoffensive and often cross into the bizarre. But, wait —there’s more! Just before the play starts, the audienceis asked to audition the actors and decide which onesthey want to play each role (all the character names areandrogynous and the play is entirely without pronouns— although not without sexuality). And so it goes untilthe play’s seven characters are cast — and since eightactors begin the process, one gets to go home early.With no real narrative thread, the play depends on thenear-improv feel of its individual scenes, plus a strongending that tips its hat to Oscar Wilde’s comedies ofidentity confusion. Eat the Runt is not in the same leagueas Wilde, but it is a triumph of style over substance,with each actor prepared to play any of the roles andthe audience in suspense as they watch intently whatthey’ve created. [Broadway Play Publishing]Comedy and suspense blend in Peter Gordon’sMurdered to Death, a thriller-farce set in a countryestate in the 1930s. Following the mysterious death ofthe house’s owner, it becomes clear that the murdererisn’t finished yet. The question is whether the culpritwill be revealed before everyone else has met theirmaker. In this case, “everyone else” is the requisitegaggle of quirky characters — Bunting, the butler; anEnglish colonel with the stiff upper lip; a shady Frenchart dealer and his girlfriend; a bumbling local policeinspector; and a well-meaning local sleuth who, likeAgatha Christie’s Miss Marple, seems to attract murderwherever she goes. Five men, five women. [DramatistsPlay Service]Quirky characters are central to The Dixie SwimClub as well, a comedy-drama by Jessie Jones, NicholasHope and Jamie Wooten. Five Southern women, whosefriendships began many years ago on their collegeswim team, set aside a long weekend every Augustto recharge those relationships and meddle in eachother’s lives. The play focuses on four of those weekendsover a period of 33 years. As their lives unfold andthe years pass, these women come to rely increasinglyon one another in order to get through the challengesof men, sex, marriage, parenting, divorce and aging.In the second act, when fate throws a monkey wrenchinto one of their lives, the group’s strength and lovemoves this comedy in a poignant and surprising direction.[Dramatists Play Service]The surprising twists of Cassandra Medley’s NoonDay Sun are based on a true incident. A light-skinnedyoung Southern woman named Zena boards a train in1947, fleeing from an abusive marriage. The conductor,mistaking her for a white woman in a colored-car,invites her to move to the car reserved for white clientele.Sensing fate in the conductor‘s misreading of herrace, she arrives in Fort Wayne, Ind., as an ostensiblywhite woman. The play then leaps ahead 10 years,with Zena (now Wendy) married to an up-and-comingyoung Irish-American salesman. Before the final scenes,however, Zena/Wendy is forced to confront her past,including the fact that years ago she lost her baby twindaughters to the flu and that she’s still legally marriedto their black father. This cautionary tale about beingtrue to your own self perhaps relies on too many plotcoincidences, but it’s still an intriguing story of characterscaught in nets of their own making. Three women,three men. [Broadway Play Publishing]One hundred years earlier, in Hannibal, Mo., teenagedSam Clemens is bored with life in the small rivertown, but can’t seem to muster the courage to leave.Since the title of Mary Collins Barile’s play is LeavingHannibal, we know that he will, but when and why?The critical moment occurs when Sam and his friend,Tom, attend the theatre for an evening of magic andhypnotism presented by a traveling showman namedProfessor Barton. Soon, Tom and other town folk areon stage, undergoing hypnosis and sharing their real orimagined adventures with river rats, sweethearts and acertain whitewashed fence. Sam declares it’s all a hoax,and the Professor challenges him to prove it. Sam takeshim on and is soon revisiting a nightmare of his own— a step that gives him the courage to leave his fearsbehind to seek fortune on the river. Six males, threefemales; parts may be redistributed for up to eightmales and five females. [Anchorage Press Plays]www.stage-directions.com • December 2008 41