By Terry Byrne and Robert Nesti
The Boston Theater Marathon has matured in the five years since it first leapt into the limelight with its 10-hour showcase of 10-minute plays. At Sunday’s marathon, more playwrights approached the confines of the 10-minute limitations with an eye toward creating a true dramatic arc, rather than an excerpt from something larger. Of course, the most accessible plays were still the comedies, and the performances were generally first rate.
Among the most dramatic pieces were Kathleen Rogers’ “Ballast,” which developed a family tragedy in brief, powerful bursts; “Clare Danes Poster,” by Tom Berry, which started out quite light before taking a dark turn; and Robert Brustein’s “Noise,” which sketched out a moving generation-gap story, given some compassion by the performances of Will Lebow and Brady Gill.
One of the sweetest, most romantic pieces came from the Rough & Tumble Theatre Company. This group’s “You Know Why You’re Here” took an old-fashioned look at love, but did it with such a sharp sense of tempo, the story had an easy sense of believability. Comedies kicked off with Jake Strautmann’s “The Ornithologist’s Mother,” which had some great give and take among Nathaniel McIntyre, Eric Rubbe and Richard Snee; Dean O’Donnell’s “For the Team,” a clever twist on the sacrifice of ultimate Red Sox fans; the over-the-top “So Fine Dining,” by Zachary L. Shrier, about food as the ultimate aphrodisiac; and “Smaller,” Jesse Kellerman’s dramedy about an older man’s obsession with an 11-year-old Pippi Longstocking type.
“Happy Daughter,” by Greg Lam, told the complete story of a girl struggling with her mother’s newfound happiness with a much-younger man. Performances by every member of this company, Bernice Sim, Bonnie Lee Whang, Kent French and Kate Fitz Kelly, were excellent.
“The King of Rock and Roll,” Richard Schotter’s
affectionate tribute to 1950s DJ Alan Freed, has Freed (a hilarious Ken Cheeseman) coaching a
A number of solo performances were standouts. In John Kuntz’s “Smurf,”
(adapted from his one-person play “Freaks”), American Repertory Theatre’s Karen
MacDonald brilliantly brought to life this sentimental caricature of an
80-year-old woman. Sheila Stasack was also very funny
as the manipulating
Best of all was Richard McElvain who offered a compelling character study of a Russian immigrant who learns the hard knocks of urban life in Ronan Noone’s sharply written “Amereka.”
Other memorable performance included an icy M. Lynda Robinson as an upper-class Manhattan matron berating her husband and his politics in the tersely written “Adopt a Sailor,” Charles Evered’s Albee-like look at differing responses to 9/11; Judith McIntyre running the gamut of emotions as a neurotic actress given a career reality check by her boyfriend (Robert Pemberton) in Theresa Rebeck’s compact character study, “The Actress”; and Diego Arciniegas’ shattering performance as a wheelchair-bound lawyer at the mercy of a psychiatrist in Paul Kahn’s “Ethics of the Profession.”
It was good to see younger companies have a role as well, specifically Linda Button’s “Holler Song,” a stylized piece that featured numerous cell phone conversations in counterpoint stylishly realized by students from Emerson College. And “Pop!-the Musical,” a sly mini-opera, related the 15 minutes of a singer’s fame in just 10 minutes. Both Sara Adelson (lyrics) and Dan Ring (composer) are talents worth watching. ■