Play De Luna – Missing The Mark
Play De Luna – Missing The Mark
Art’s Sake Theatre
Winter Park, FL</strong>
Brevity is the essence of wit, and these ten relationship plays are just that – short and witty. These ten minute plays successfully tackle stories that wouldn’t remain interesting for an hour; let’s drop in on them right now.
“Film Appreciation” (by David Susman, Dir. Clare Ghezzi, with Mellissa Dianna Coakley, Derek Angell, and Will Blanton) takes us into the world of man who speaks only in film quotes. Movie buff Brian (Angell) meets film neophyte Trisha (Coakley) at a Fellini festival and they fall for each other until his quote mania drives her to distraction. It’s a cute and touching look at adapting to a lover’s quirks, and I was happy to hear the younger audience laughing at lines from films their grandparents saw in first release.
“Kill Me, Please!” (by Rhea MacCallum, Dir. Jenifer Jarackas, with Bethany Ilene Wedlund and Jason Fusco) opens on a dark and creepy street. Gloria (Wedlund) dresses hot and bubbles over with perky energy. She hopes to meet the famous “Slasher” (Fusco) and have him practice his art on her face. Despite her effervescence, she’s lonely and depressed and wants to be in the newspaper. All this energy freaks him out a bit, and what fun is killing someone without the fear in their eyes? Can they make it as a couple, or should she break off on her own?
“A Medical Breakthrough” (by Frederick Stropped, Dir. Luis Poggi, with Sarah Yoho and Tim Riedel) introduces us to hyper competitive Mr. Moore (Riedel). He was hanging with his game buddies and they all got to bragging about just what they could place up their poop chute. He won the game, but now he has a live grenade up there and needs help from Dr. Fields (Yoho). Her big question: “Is it alive?” passes the test, and we then get a string of proctology gags that overall work pretty well. I loved her devil-may-care attitude, and Mr. Riedel did seem pretty contrite. And there is a moral: never do this with live ordnance. Dummy grenades are just as good for this contest.
Married life gets compressed into 10 minutes in “Family 2.0” (by Walter Wykes, Dir. David Meneses, starring Chris Walker and Christy Keating). Mr. Walker was walking home from work, bemoaning his crappy marriage, and decides to try a different wife. He gets flowers and knocks on a random home, surprising Ms. Keating, whom he romances heavily for about 5 minutes until her kids come out demanding time and money and attention. So much for the hot sex, and when Real Husband arrives he takes on the role of the family pet. Weird, but so fast paced you never get bored.
After intermission, we jump into “Happenstance” (by Craig Pospisil, Dir. Yvonne Suhor) Cassidy (Rachel Res) and her mild mannered husband Martin (Derek Angell) stop for one of those complicated coffee drinks they refer to as “The Usual.” While he’s off in half latte, triple soy land her ex-BF Abe (Aaron Sherry) appears. Is he happy? She hopes not, and she has the super power of rewinding time to get any answer to any part of his back story she wants. But Abe has a tall, thin new squeeze who wears the pinkest dress imaginable. Who’s happy here? No one, really.
“Pillow” (by Frederick Stroppel, Dir. Chris Walker, with Hayley Haas and Susan Potrock) finds some old friends having a drink and talking about dates that died before the date ended. And when I say “died”, we’re not talking no good night kiss, but a trip to the undertaker. Clearly the darkest of tonight shows, it has some of the tightest, funniest dialog. And take good notes; don’t ask either of these two out after the show.
Chelsea (Joan Erica Rice) is tired of her red neck boyfriend Will (Wayne Wilkins) in “Change of Plans” (by Lydia Hubbell, Dir. Lindsi Jeter). She needs to dump him, and she calls on her extremely gay friend Aidan (Alexis Valentin Casanovas) to play her new boyfriend. It’s a bold strategy, but even when she teaches Aiden to sit with his legs spread and shoulder bump Will, he’s just not as convincing as a hetero. Will appears, does some damage, and leaves, again leaving everyone unhappy.
We close with the fast and funny “Heroes for Hire” (by Matt Einhorn, Dir. John Connon) Sabrina (Marissa Zumbo) runs a boutique PR company, and the tired trio of Sympathy Girl (Lindsi Jeter), Seduction Man (Mark Williams), and my favorite “High Tolerance for Pain Man” (Matt Militano) come to her for help. The plot twists, a cross is doubled, and plenty of lame super hero jokes fly by but it’s up to Seduction Man to save the day. He’s like Ron Jeremy with poor hygiene, but he saves the day. Just don’t google “Cleveland Steamer.”
Seriously. Don’t. Ever.
And to see what else Art’s Sake offers check out www.art-sake.com
