CurtainUp
CurtainUp
The Internet Theater Magazine of Reviews, Features, Annotated Listings
HOME PAGE

SITE GUIDE

SEARCH


REVIEWS

REVIEW ARCHIVES

ADVERTISING AT CURTAINUP

FEATURES

NEWS
Etcetera and
Short Term Listings


LISTINGS
Broadway
Off-Broadway

NYC Restaurants

BOOKS and CDs

OTHER PLACES
Berkshires
London
California
New Jersey
DC
Connecticut
Philadelphia
Elsewhere

QUOTES

TKTS

PLAYWRIGHTS' ALBUMS

LETTERS TO EDITOR

FILM

LINKS

MISCELLANEOUS
Free Updates
Masthead
A CurtainUp Review
EST Marathon 2010 — Series A

By Deborah Blumenthal

I had the unexpected pleasure of attending part of the Ensemble Studio Theatre's one-act festival; it was my first trip to this New York theater tradition, and the perfect way to kick off the sometimes strange, always eclectic New York theater-going season.

The five-play Series A doesn't have much of a through-line, but while thematic cohesion can be nice, it's also refreshing so see brief glimpses of vastly different situations and ideas. With an overarching theme in absentia, it's difficult to classify the evening as a whole, other than to say it was diverse, yet not universally impressive.

The evening gets off to a crackling start, with Ben Rosenthal's Safe, the strongest of the group. A botched teenage hookup ends in assault, leaving a widower stepfather to bail out his stepson. Intriguing, smartly written, and equally well-acted, Rosenthal's play packs a lot of punches into a little while, but never feels overcrowded. It may not be neat, but it's all compact — a sophisticated balance that shows promise for this playwright.

Gears shift from troubled youth to squabbling elders, in Wild Terrain by Adam Kraar, in which an older couple visits a sculpture exhibition and bumps into a woman from their past. Henry is a retired professor, and Cherie had been one of his favorite students. The three have an odd and uncomfortable encounter, and yet the point or resolution is unclear. With its prescribed sense of mystery the play circumvents too much and seems less a stand-alone whole than a scene, but the performances make it interesting and watchable.

The first act rounds out with the odd (and oddly gruesome) Matthew and the Pastor's Wife, by Robert Askins. By the bizarre sound effect with which it begins, you'd think you were in for some kind of ghost story, but it's actually nothing of the sort — just bloody. Matthew, a classified sinner, sits down for a meeting with his small-town preacher's wife, Dorothy, to discuss his road to morality. Righteousness itself goes out the window, in this eyebrow-raising piece that left me with a question mark plastered clear across my face, and my stomach with a distinct queasy feeling. This is a head-scratcher, and not in a good way. It starts out with big ideas, but tackles none of them, and doesn't even really seem to try.

After intermission, politics take center stage with two lengthier, particularly timely plays. Daniel Reitz's Turnabout addresses sexuality and political affiliation; Amy Fox's Where The Children Are, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In Turnabout two ex-lovers meet for coffee to discuss finances. Dennis has come into some wealth, and Josh is in desperate need of funds to pay the medical bills for his seriously ill current boyfriend. Dennis, smug and distant, agrees to help Josh, an actor, whose retribution is to serve as a g-string clad bartender and Dennis' new boyfriend's high-profile event. The catch is that this man, who we never meet, is a prominent member of the Republican Party, which Josh finds repugnant and hypocritical. A Starbucks meet-up overturns to a secluded area at the party, where Josh meets Cheyenne, the other hired bartender with a dark past. This young, spiritual beauty willing to do what it takes to get by. We learn, too, of Josh and Dennis' past, and political tension takes the backseat to more human questions of how we treat those who love and once loved us. It's not as effective as it could be, but well anchored and gently humorous. I'd like to see it stretched further, since it leaves a lot undeveloped, and might work better as a longer piece.

The last piece, Where the Children Are, charts the experiences of five parents whose children have gone off to war since 2001. It traces the optimism with which they set out to approach fear, hope and uncertainty through the reality of the various sorts of aftermath they face. They speak not to one another, but in rotating monologues, with the exception of a husband and wife who have been charged with the care of their granddaughters when their daughter shipped out. The play offers glimpses at the way families cope, and at we cope with fear and sadness at large. Easily the most affecting is a mother who ultimately loses her son, as we watch her unpack his belongings that have been sent home. The themes are common, but the structural approach makes it fascinating. The stories, despite their short length, hold a remarkable humanity, and the evening ends, albeit quite differently, as strongly as it began.

Ensemble Studio Theatre's One-Act Marathon's One-Act Play Marathon : 2010 Series A
Safe
By Ben Rosenthal
Directed by Carolyn Cantor
Cast: Gio Perez, Danny Mastrogiorgio

Wild Terrain
By Adam Kraar
Directed by Richmond Hoxie
Cast: Jack Davidson, Marcia Jean Kurtz, Catherine Curtin

Matthew and the Pastor's Wife
By Robert Askins
Directed by John Giampietro
Cast: Scott Sowers, Geneva Carr

Turnabout
By Daniel Reitz
Directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel
Cast: Lou Liberatore, John-Martin Green, Haskell King

Where the Children Are
By Amy Fox
Directed by Abigail Zealey Bess
Cast: Barbara Andres, Denny Bess, Bill Cwikowski, Freddie Lehne, Melanie Nicholls-King

Sets Design: Maiko Chii
Costume Design: Leslie Bernstein
Lighting Design: Julie Duro
Props: Renee Williams
Sound Designer: Shane Rettig
Running Time: 2 hours and 30 minutes, including one ten-minute intermission
E.S.T., 549 West 52nd Street (between 10th and 11th) SERIES A: May 21st - June 19th
For the performance schedule as well as the lineup for Series B, see the Ensemble Studio Theatre website, www.ensemblestudiotheatre.org
Reviewed by Deborah Blumenthal on May 29th
REVIEW FEEDBACK
Highlight one of the responses below and click "copy" or"CTRL+C"
  • I agree with the review of ENSEMBLE STUDO THEATRE'S ONE-ACT PLAY MARATHON: 2010 Series A
  • I disagree with the review of ENSEMBLE STUDO THEATRE'S ONE-ACT PLAY MARATHON: 2010 Series A
  • The review made me eager to see ENSEMBLE STUDO THEATRE'S ONE-ACT PLAY MARATHON: 2010 Series A
Click on the address link E-mail: esommer@curtainup.com
Paste the highlighted text into the subject line (CTRL+ V):

Feel free to add detailed comments in the body of the email. . .also the names and emails of any friends to whom you'd like us to forward a copy of this review.

You can also contact us at Curtainup at Facebook , Curtainup at Twitter and at our Blog Annex . . . Curtain Up Blog Annex at Kindle
Subscribe to our FREE email updates with a note from editor Elyse Sommer about additions to the website -- with main page hot links to the latest features posted at our numerous locations. To subscribe, E-mail: esommer@curtainup.comesommer@curtainup.com
put SUBSCRIBE CURTAINUP EMAIL UPDATE in the subject line and your full name and email address in the body of the message -- if you can spare a minute, tell us how you came to CurtainUp and from what part of the country.
South Pacific  Revival
South Pacific


In the Heights
In the Heights


Playbillyearbook
Playbill Broadway Yearbook


broadwaynewyork.com


amazon




©Copyright 2010, Elyse Sommer.
Information from this site may not be reproduced in print or online without specific permission from esommer@curtainup.com