One of the most difficult things for up and coming playwrights is the relative dearth of companies doing full productions of new, locally created work. It’s rare to see a new play in something other than a one-time-only bare bones reading. It’s expensive to put on theatre, wanting to lean toward something proven is completely understandable but can be discouraging. That’s what makes Evolution Theatre Company’s Local Playwright’s Festival put on in association with CATCO, which opened last night, an invaluable addition to the work companies like MadLab and Available Light are doing and a key part of the scene. Full productions, off-book, of brand new work.
The first of the next two weeks’ festival is Four Shorts: LGBTQQIA and Politics. As you’d expect from a series of short plays, not everything works; but it’s a raucous, engaging night that grapples with our moment right now and uses the physical immediacy of theatre to great effect with some of our town’s finest actors.
The program opens with the weakest of the four pieces, Amy Drake’s “Alexander the Great in Love and War” directed by festival producer and ETC Managing Artistic Director Mark Phillips Schwamberger. It features great performances from Christopher Storer as an Alexander struggling with the ego he’s both born into and earned, Nick Hardin as Hephaestion and Eryn Reynolds as Alexander’s wife Roxane. In a fascinating take, Hardin and Reynolds play their characters as two sides of the same coin, spoiled children struggling with only part of the love of a powerful, charismatic man. But the play has a hard time distilling its sweeping subject matter into a focused short and too often lapses into Cliff’s Notes and platitudes, even using the hoary trope of Alexander having a fever dream on his death bed as a framing device. It’s too static with long sections of characters just standing or kneeling while someone else tells them something in full “As you know, Bob,” style.
After the first short, things improve immeasurably. Sheldon Gleisser’s “Vetted,” directed by Kristina Kopf features a Vice President (Todd Covert) looking at his own presidential run and vetting running mates with his main strategist (Jim Azelvandre), meeting with a young, exciting, progressive congressman (Scott Risner). It’s a very funny look how vital compromise is and, at the same time, how tiny compromises can kill an attempt to do good by a thousand cuts. Covert brings a charming bad-boy gravitas to his role and that sparks against Azelvandre’s manic energy. They have a great rapport that clearly shows why they need one another and Risner does a terrific job reflecting the hypocrisy of the media and how innocent parties get swept into the race to make things tapioca-safe for the broadest number of people.
The Lion in Winter hangs over most of this production, still the best play about a “politician” confronting keeping what he has. Nowhere is that resonance more present than in Jack Petersen’s moving, bittersweet “Shall I Run Again” directed by Petersen himself. This short features David Allen Vargo as a president struggling with whether to run again alongside his confidant of 20 years, now his Chief of Staff, Charlie (Frank Barnhart). It’s a beautiful look at how much you can fit into a life and still feel like it’s unfinished. Vargo’s heartbreaking mix of absolute strength and utter regret glows as a poltician asking the questions I think every voter wants their elected official to ask; doing the kind of vital soul-searching about why to run in the first place that often seems missing from politics. While the twist isn’t surprising this is a perfectly carved miniature with Petersen wisely directing it like a waltz and two astonishing performances from Barnhart and Vargo.
The night closes on a lighter note with Cory Skurdal’s “A Point of Diminishing Returns” also directed by Jack Petersen. This follows a rally by Kent Halloran’s Hayes, leader of the “Aqua Pura Party” built around his bottled water company. Over 15ish funny, fast-paced minutes Halloran outs his nephew (Christopher Storer) as gay and his other advance person Sheila (Eryn Reynolds) as bisexual. This does a great job tweaking the similarity between a modern political rally and a corporate advertisement. It shows how a well-meaning person can inadvertently be horribly offensive without any malice and also how badly younger people can freak out when their elders get close to that line. This screwball comedy is perfectly paced with Halloran’s twinkling bull in a china shop pinballing off of and past Storer’s hilarious neurotic and Reynolds’ long-suffering voice of reason.
Four Shorts isn’t perfect but there’s a lot to enjoy here and it’s worth the time of any theatre lover in town.
Four Shorts runs through June 5 with shows at 8pm through Saturday and a 2pm matinee Sunday. For tickets and more info, visit http://evolutiontheatre.org/