PlayFest: Lots Packed Into These 10-Minute Plays

Brian Richard and Chelsea Dean rehearsing for Adverse Possession

by Elsie McFarland

Actors Theater of Orcas Island is presenting the Eighth Annual PlayFest which features local playwrights, local directors, and local actors. Over 50 people are involved in bringing the PlayFest to you this year.

Seven ten-minute plays are featured this year and each one packs a lot of emotion into a few minutes time. Each play demonstrates a little snippet of time in people’s lives—people not unlike us—who are faced with conflict, crises, times of transition, and just the everydayness of life and living. But let’s proceed to the Review of this year’s plays.

James Wolf’s The Palm Reader brings a soft opening to the festival with a barefooted sultry palm reader, (perfectly portrayed by Cara Russell) gently connecting with a precocious 8-year-old neighborhood boy, Jimmie, played confidently and matter-of-factly by Thian Armenia. A wonderful chemistry develops between this unlikely pair, and Jimmie is given the opportunity to perhaps change his future. Deftly directed by Patty Monaco.

Return playwright Jackie Bates has another winner in Yard Sale. Jackie usually writes with a bit of tongue-in-cheek, and she uses some of that in Yard Sale to deal with a couple’s break-up, and the angst engendered by the public sale of all their worldly goods. The angry, cheated-on wife is played with a combination of frustration and angst by Audrey Neddermann, while can’t-apologize-enough Nate Feder makes us sympathetic with the prodigal husband. Gillian Smith makes an apologetic entrance as the ‘former best friend/other woman’ (I’m surprised there wasn’t hissing by the audience), and Tom Fiscus, in a quick walk-on, asks the right question at the right time which leaves a door open for reconciliation. FX Michaels directed, with considerable understanding and sensitivity.

Adverse Possession by Bill Westlake is set in a prison visiting room. Maura O’Neill is a forceful Mrs. Corbin, a tough, experienced-in-the-school-of-hard-knocks type, and a former banker, who, while serving her sentence for embezzlement, endures visits from Gracie, her attractive manipulative cosmetician daughter, played by Chelsea Dean, and Gracie’s semi-loser new boyfriend Lionel, played by Brian Richard. It is well-staged and well-acted with much amusing interplay between the daughter, the boyfriend and the older—but in the final analysis—much wiser Mom. Directed by Lin McNulty with her usual flair.

A Play At The Plate by Indy Zoeller is one of those old school/new school situations, most invitingly and simply set in the Kansas City Royals radio broadcast booth. Fred Vinson, absent too long from the Grange stage, is back and gives credence to Miles, an old time, low tech , slow-talking play-by-play announcer, while the younger nerdy Mason (Peter Vinson) sits next to him, his nose in the computer and stats at the ready. Their good-natured repartee is part offense and part defense as they attempt to make a case for their differing styles. The last line and the play’s ending proved to be one of the evening’s highlights, and I won’t spoil it for you by describing it here. Lynda Sanders directed this one masterfully. I was waiting for the 7th inning stretch.

FX Michaels wrote Devil May Care, a window on the struggles of a young woman dealing with alcohol addiction. The scene opens on a street corner with Aurora (Kira Bradshaw) in extreme distress, depressed and ready to commit suicide. She is rescued by a concerned Bethany (Cele Westlake), who takes her home and tries to involve her in a twelve step program, suggesting she seek help from her higher power. As luck would have it, her higher power, played ethereally by Tracey Oniya, is a darker power lurking in the background, and Aurora becomes stretched between two opposites. Bev Johnson plays the part of Bethany’s friend, who, at the end, brings unwelcome news. It’s a powerful, commanding performance by all actors, and carefully and thoughtfully directed by Audra Goffeney.

Results Are In, written by Lin McNulty, is delightful in many ways, and a play which features a strong-willed, non-cooperative teenager, very convincingly played by Olivia Smith. The frustrated, pleading, at-wit’s-end parents, are played superbly by Michel Griskey and Nick Hershenow, who promise the world to the recalcitrant teen in order to get her to dress appropriately for the big event. It is fast-paced, and this one, too, will surprise you at the end. Directed with lighthearted faithfulness to the script by Cara Russell.

Cara Russell, writer, actor, director and producer in this year’s PlayFest, wrote the last play of the night, Sign Off. The play, set in 1973, opens with Dad (played empathetically by Tom Fiscus) who is asleep on the couch while the TV blares away. Soon the station signs off with the playing Star Spangled Banner—as it used to do in 1973, so we know it’s midnight or later. His daughter Cheryl (played sensitively by Aerial Brown) sneaks in the front door, goes to her room, returns with a suitcase and tries to sneak out again, but drops the suitcase which wakes her Dad. There is tender and poignant dialogue between the two as the daughter announces her intention to leave home so her life can begin. Breaking the tension is the exuberant somewhat confused cab driver (Andy Martin) who knocks on the door inquiring about his fare. It’s a heart-tugger, well acted, and directed beautifully by Gillian Smith.

Actors from the first six plays joined the Sign Off cast at the end of their play, and a standing ovation by an appreciative audience brought the dress rehearsal evening to an appropriate close.

The Eighth Annual PlayFest continues at The Grange on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, April 26-28, and May 3-5 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $5 and available from Darvill’s, online at brownpapertickets.com, or at the door.