~ Bizarro Night ~

Bizarro Night kicked it all off, and truly lived up to the promise of its name, beginning with Jean Cocteau’s The Wedding on the Eiffel Tower, the most anticipated event of the festival starring local favorites Ron Choularton and Priscilla Allen as human phonographs who narrate the story and supply a host of quirky characters with their voices. Cocteau, a friend of Picasso, creates a world that feels like you’re lost in a Picasso painting (aided by the swirling background of the Eiffel Tower that drew us into the surreality of the scene, and the fact that many of the characters wore painted blocks for heads with Picasso-like faces, some of them being two-sided so that they became two characters in one – just a few of the fantastic creations of Sheila Rosen). 

The surreal world is situated on the Eiffel Tower right after World War I, and concerns a photographer whose “birdie” (the one that his customers are supposed to watch when he takes their picture) is an ostrich that actually runs away and gets chased by a mighty ostrich hunter. Meanwhile the photographer ends up photographing a very odd wedding party, his camera going even more berserk in the process. Now, instead of “birdies” popping out, out jumps a bathing beauty, a little boy who is the wedding couple’s future son and who massacres the entire wedding party with balls of wedding confetti, and a hungry lion that munches on a stubborn general who thinks everything out of the ordinary is a mirage (and therefore isn’t afraid of the lion who, logically, must really not be there).

Using a singular sense of comedy, symbolism, and satire, Cocteau illustrates the often ridiculous and tragic nature of war, society, and our social conventions. Technology seems to be out of control (the freaked out camera) and yet controlling us (with the phonographs dictating and explaining the actions of the humans). With the charismatic ensemble who fully embrace Cocteau’s weirdness, and under the insightful direction of Robert Salerno, the show moves at a breathless pace leaving one always thinking, laughing, and feeling a bit confused – but definitely never bored.

Next up was Mandingo Interruptus, a humorously performed story about Timothy (a black man who only dates white women) and his amusing Alter Ego whom he keeps talking to (a habit that his dates find a little disconcerting, as they cannot see or hear the alter ego that he is talking with). The Alter Ego’s advice is rarely listened to, often resulting in Timothy letting the women get him into all sorts of trouble. But is he really dating anyone at all? His psychologist says it’s all in his head, and his problem is not the women, but his own internal issues.

What is reality and what is imagination? The lines are so blurred that Timothy, and the audience, may never know the truth. Especially as the play ends rather suddenly and without any fulfilling conclusion as to whether he will ever resolve his problems. However, the magnificent performances of Benjamin Brown as Timothy and Stevie Johnson as his Alter Ego make it an entertaining ride till the end.

But the ending of Bizarro Night was not unsatisfying at all, ending with the most bizarre production of all – Nick Olney’s Zeitgeist! Performed all in German but in a fashion where there was never much doubt as to what was being said, we see a young couple (Lisa Rodriguez and Jim McKinley) reunited by chance in front of a little café. They go in for a drink (out of “Carl’s Jr.” cups), and find themselves served by a hilariously moody waitress (Lauren Beck) and serenaded by a very unique band. That band proves to be more troublesome than romantic, as the couple find themselves completely at odds as to what kind of music should be played (although each song sounds the same to our ears, with masked singer Nick Olney screaming nonsensical noises into the microphone while squirming about on the floor).

The difference of musical taste (over what is, in reality, no big difference at all) leads to an unforgettable lovers’ “spat” involving a spitting match that goes way out of control, eventually leaving the girl (and part of the audience) quite wet, and more than a little upset. But that still doesn’t stop her from giving the boy her heart – a big heart-shaped cookie that, so the hungry singer determines, “tastes good.”

Between this latest play and his three crazy one-acts performed earlier this year at Actors Asylum, Nick Olney seems to be creating a distinctive new genre of plays that could have him end up with his own following of rabid fans, and could leave many others just thinking he writes crazy plays that don’t make any sense. Count me in as one of the fans!

~ Relationship Night ~

Relationship Night saw six different one-acts about friends and lovers and family members trying to understand one another, find happiness with one another, or just come to terms with each other.

The Date by local playwright Richard Markgraf tells the story of Donald (Matthew DeMerrit), a 30-year-old virgin living at home with his mother (Rachel Carey Holland). Donald is nervously getting ready for his first date as an adult – a blind date with someone he met over the personal ads on the Web. His mother encourages him, but doesn’t really hold out much hope for her shy son. So we are all surprised when he brings home the stunning Algebra (Lori Gundershaug), a voluptuous goddess who thinks Donald is perfect and can’t wait to bear his children. It’s almost too good to be true. Algebra was certainly never that much fun when I was in school…

Local actress and first-time playwright Elissa Desani wrote and starred in Proposals, a play that has Elissa musing as to why she is still single after receiving more than thirty marriage proposals. She focuses on three in particular – three stories with amusingly tragic endings that leave you feeling sorry for both her and the three poor guys she dumps (Grandison M. P., Landon Vaughn, and Diep Huynh). With three great punch lines to her stories and a hilarious conclusion, Elissa the playwright is off to an excellent start.

In Chocolate-Covered Love, Gordon believes he’s found his dieting wife the perfect Valentine’s Day present. Isaac Riddle narrates how he went about figuring out the gift, and figuring out his wife’s response to it, in a script by Leslie Ridgeway that ranges from comical cynicism to tenderness.

Perhaps the most gentle and touching of the festival’s plays was The Tree of Life by local playwright James Anthony Ellis. The story traces the relationship of a boy and girl through their first clumsy but genuine attempts at love through their optimistic courting as young adults, their painful arguing and lack of patience with one another following several years of marriage, and finally their bittersweet reunion at the end of life’s journey. The magnificent ensemble is led by Lance Rogers and Erin Cronican who portray all the different ages and emotions with great skill. Lesley Gurule and Amir Khastoo are the graceful, angelic onlookers who evoke so much additional emotion through their subtle reactions to the dialogue at the various stages of Erin and Lance’s relationship. Though sometimes a little simplified, the nicely drawn story, realistic performances by a talented ensemble, and a poetry that encompasses the entire tale combine for a beautiful experience.

Homosexual relationships are considered in Terrence McNally’s Andre’s Mother. Set during a funeral for Cal’s (Landon Vaughn) gay lover, Cal attempts talking with his lover’s mother (Kathleen McNally). The mother never responds verbally, still in a state of shock, denial, anger, and embarrassment. She did not know that her son was gay until his death from AIDS. With exceptional dialogue and strong performances by Landon and Kathleen, the show is a sensitive examination of a woman battling between the morals she grew up with and her love for her son.

~ Local Playwrights Night ~

Local Playwrights Night at the Festival got off to a morbidly delightful start with James Caputo’s The Body Shop. We’re not talking car mechanics here. Think more like Six Feet Under. Yes, a “body shop” is what Mary, a professional mourner, calls the mortuary where they get the dead bodies looking as nice as they can before they are put out on display for the family.

As Mary, Pat Di Meo is a “rip” as she describes to newcomer Amy (Amy Scholl) the behind-the-scenes mortician magic involved, and some of the horror stories she’s witnessed, all with a blend of humor, scientific detachment, and soulful sensitivity. Amy takes it all in with a little bit of disgust and a little bit of curiosity despite herself. For she is curious – that curiosity about death being the driving force behind her compulsion to see a dead body on that particular day.

In Late Night Conversations by Al Myers, Len Irving sends an e-mail to God, wanting to suggest that it might make more sense to have people live forever on earth so that the wisdom they accumulate is not lost to the rest of the world when they die. His e-mail earns him a visit from a most peculiar angel (Annie Denise Evans) who offers him some amusing and little-known facts about the modern-day heaven while she curiously and enthusiastically explores 21st-century life in Len’s untidy apartment (she finds things like soda pop and shoelaces especially distracting). Myers’s script is a fun, little modern take on religion, and features some highly amusing performances by Len and especially Annie.

Playwright and Director Barbara Chronowski staged selected scenes from her new full-length play Kingdom of the Shadows, a piece of historical fiction set in Moscow just before and during World War I (and the Bolshevik Revolution). Andrei Petrovsky (Daniel Heath), the first Russian filmmaker, believes moving pictures will pave the way to a new and modern Russia, benefiting the people, the culture, and the country. But he finds his technical “revolution” repressed by the ruling Czars and desired by the Bolsheviks who see it as a tool to stoke the flames of social unrest. It looks like it may have a lot of potential as an intriguing full-length play, which hopefully we will be able to see somewhere soon. Naturally, this abridged version is a bit choppy and we don’t get to see the characters develop as they would in the full version.

Tony Kuhn’s The #5 is a new comedy about public transportation – city buses, to be more precise, and the people who ride them. In this case we are introduced to four social misfits, one of them being the obnoxiously self-righteous Skyler Dennon who, in snubbing the others, inspires the others to rise above their various neuroses in order to give them some much-needed self-confidence (and to make Skyler pay!).

And, finally, we set off to a messy bachelor flat in an apartment building far, far away where live two rabid Star Wars fans who dream of nothing but becoming Jedi Knights. In Ary Hernandez’s The Wannabes: Episode I, the two hilarious wannabes (Kayton Tomaszyk and Jeff McCue) finally get their opportunity when they find they are living next door to a big-time drug dealer (Chaz Chicote) with a million-dollar price on his head. But the Force will have to be with them if this bungling duo can capture the drug dealer and not get themselves and their Princess Lea girlfriend (Marija Ruzic) killed in the process. This comic spoof is far more entertaining than the latest Star Wars film produced by Lucas, and it is actually being turned into a short film itself in the coming months!

The other "Nights" will be posted here shortly. For more details on the Festival, please go to http://www.sandiegoplaybill.com/news/news_aasd_030424.html.

Rob Hopper
San Diego Playbill