Number 46: Playfest 2005
by Carl F. Gauze
Number 43 – New Playfest 2005 Edition
I’m ready for a new year, the last one was nothing to brag about. You know the key details, so let’s focus on the new and hope something better comes out of the wreckage of the old. It’s time for the newest major artsy fartsy event on Orlando’s Cultural Horizon, “Playfest! 2005”. I’m not thrilled about the exclamation point in the middle, but other than that it promises some exciting new works and world premieres from local and national writers. There’s a nucleus of new works coming from this town, and one of these might be the next “Cats”. Only more interesting.
Vine Theater – 3 Short Pieces
New Playfest
Orlando UCF Shakespeare Center, Orlando Fla.
Three writers group their works in progress under the Vine’s umbrella to give an interesting if rather long program. Their presentation at new Playfest is an opportunity for the authors to seek feedback as well as offering the public a glimpse into the process of writing.
The lead show is an excerpt from “See Rock City,” written by Arlene Hutton. We find our selves in a small town at in WW2. Young May (Kimberly Gray) is an ambitious school teacher, with a shot at making principal in a year or so. She married gentle Raleigh (Scott Ghram), a young man with epilepsy and few prospects for employment. He writes sporadically for a living, but May is the bread winner, a situation frowned on by the town. May’s Mother Mrs. Gill (Donna Black) supports her, but Raleigh mother (Gloria Duggan) regards him as a lazy ne’re do well. The pair stumble along until the war ends, and May loses her job unfairly, and asks Raleigh to move to New York, hoping he can make it there.
While the split between May and Raleigh is abrupt, the lead up is a well modulated view of small town life and mores, with a slight scandal associated with any action not consistent with what has always been done. The high point of this show is a hysterical account of the Gill’s dog Jimbo, who would sneak in to church to be with the family. “See Rock City” is a homey tale of sacrifice for love, with well built characters you’d like to know more about.
Next up is completed work, “Anglo-American Alliance”, written by Anne Nelson. There’s a tension in any artistic household, a tension between the need to create and the need to eat. Freddy (Roger Scott) spews motets and concertos and occasionally hits a commission. Wife Lisa (Lucy Carney) writes music as well, but one composition a year is top speed for her, s her day job keeps them afloat. An Old friend Henry (Landon Price) drops by, ostensibly to offer a commission to Freddy but really to make a much more personal offer to Lisa. It’s sudden, unexpected, but quite attractive…
Anglo American alliance is reminiscent of the comedies that came out of England in the 60’s and 70’s, with a decidedly sardonic take on love and marriage. There are plenty of laughs, and while Henry looks a bit smarmy, you believe he reasonably sincere enough about his offer, and Lisa distracted enough to consider it.
Finally, we come to an excerpt for the musical “First Comes Love…” (Music by George Livings, Book and Lyrics by Jonathan Hickey) a piece that has most of a first act and a rough sketch of a second act. The story revolves around a musician and a writer (Patrick Oliver Jones and Tony Dietterick) working for a tyrannical boss (Eric Nutting) and unable to produce material fast enough. The musician is tied up with a new baby, and the writer with a failing marriage. The songs sound good, well polished and interesting, and the show stops abruptly, leaving us ready to come back and hear more, hopefully by next year’s festival. Good material, all around.
Coyote on a Fence
Written By Bruce Graham
Directed by Chris Jorie
Starring T. Robert Pigott, Jim Howard
Orlando Theater Project at Seminole Community College
If you’re bad enough, we remove you from society and put you in jail. If you’re really bad, we keep you there till you die, and maybe speed the process a bit. It’s a minor industry, arresting, store housing, and debating these people, but don’t get me wrong – most of these guys you don’t want wandering around. Tonight John Brennan (Howard) is the jail house intellectual – erudite, clever, and a good enough speller to edit the Death Row Advocate. His complete complex sentences make him the darling of the New York Times and high on the warden’s crap list. His crime? He’s ACCUSED of kicking a drug dealer to death, but since no one in jail is really guilty, he keeps up his denial as reporter Sam Fried (Chris Pfingsten) grills him for a scoop. While he types away on a ribbonless typewriter, his neighbor Bobby Rayburn (Pigott) babbles on about white supremacy from the spaciousness of a death row cell. Backwoods and a bit retarded, he burnt 37 blacks to death in a racist attack, so The Times thinks a little less of him. We like our villains, but only if they’re villainous in exactly the right way. Both are scheduled to die, and while Brennan works the system, Rayburn gladly admits his action, hoping to see Jesus real soon. Who’s the better man? Neither, really, they both failed society in a big way, and as a group we cannot tolerate either sort of sin.
It’s tough to make light of the situation, but Graham’s clever script blossoms as a black comedy under Jorie’s deft touch. Pigott shows a real knack for the hillbilly Aryan role, playing it as an enthusiastic puppy with no moral qualms about what he’s done and willing to do again. Howard’s Brennan connives and glosses over the horrors of his crime as well as the crimes of the executed as he writes their obituaries. They may have been mass murderers outside, but inside they are one and all pillars of the community. Guarding the jail birds is the outstanding Christine Decker as Shawna DuChamps, tough prison guard and Brennan’s only real friend. Pfingsten’s reporter reads a bit more ambiguously. He might be genuinely interested in Brennan’s plight, or might be looking for a sensational story, or slumming a bit, but either way, he makes very definite moral judgments on the people he reports on, journalistic detachment be damned.
The death penalty is one of the most polarizing issues in America, and the hypocrisy of both poles shows clearly in “Coyote.” Those who support it often seek vengeance, and the issue of proper application of the ultimate punishment often becomes trivialized. Those who oppose it often choose to ignore the brutality of the crime, romanticizing the guilty even if they would fight tooth and nail to keep them out of their neighborhoods. In the middle sit the two groups who deal with the situation on a daily basis – the judged and their keepers. Both are human, and both are animals. It’s just not always where either of them sits on a daily basis.
Orlando Theater Project: http://www.otp.cc
