PlayFest Review: Concentration on Family Craziness and the Search for Meaning

By Margie Doyle

The seventh annual Actors Theater of Orcas Island PlayFest, which premiered last night at the Grange, combined local talent in playwriting, acting and direction for a smorgasbord of family/relationship dramas. Whether the performances were painfully serious or indulgently whimsical, the combined talents created an intense evening of the human condition.

It is a sign of the health of local theater when so many young talents are represented on the stage, as represented at PlayFest by writer/actor Indy Zoeller, writer/director Cara Russell, actors Zach Night and Peter Vinson,  and actresses Dove Dingman, Regina Zwilling, Maria Massey, Vanessa Ryder and Olivia Roseberry.

New ATOI actors include Larry Coddington, Denise O’Toole, Rebecca Ferrell, and Tom Fiscus. Lin McNulty directed for the first time, joining Bev Leyman, Ron Herman, Doug Bechtel and Patty Monaco in that theater craft.

The sold-out audience on Opening Night engaged in the performances of:

Diminished Thirds, by Indy Zoeller, the eternal love triangle expressed in musical dynamics as three young friends struggle to move forward in “serious” life;

The Waiting Room, written by Jackie Bates with actresses Maura O’Neill, Angelica Mayo and Pat Ayers in a sisterly confrontation about how they coped with long-past family angst;

It’s All About the Breath,  written by Luann Pamatian, ignites a simple two-character event into a whirlwind of subconscious characters, played delightfully by Dov Dingman, Larry Coddington and Suzanne Gropper.   This play was the directorial debut of Cara Russell, who also wrote Thought for Food;

Square One, written by Lin McNulty, shows an uncomfortable reunion of two family members. McNulty said later she was encouraged to expose her characters more deeply as she wrote drafts of the play. The result, as enacted by Maria Massey and Rebecca Ferrell, is incredibly sad to contemplate, “what might have been,” or more pointedly, “what should never have been.”

In Thought for Food, Indy Zoeller returns as a Genius (not Muse) to lift writer Tom Fiscus over his writer’s block — or is it a lover’s block? Fiscus, who was last seen on the Orcas Center stage as the principled Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird,  is a marvel to watch as a frenzied dreamer.

Held, written by Ron Herman, is another painful look at family dynamics gone terribly wrong, as the daughter, played by Vanessa Ryder, “mothers” her demented mother, played fretfully by Suzanne Gropper, as they revisit the past.

May the Force is another Michele Griskey suburban sit-com with that renowned imaginative craziness Orcas audiences have come to expect from Griskey. And she doesn’t disappoint, nor do the actors — Freddy Hinkle as a deluded Star Wars fan, Pat Ayers as his understanding, career wife and Gary Bauder as, well, as the “slighly wicked and squeaky clean” spirit guide Darth Jedi, who haphazardly leads Hinkle back to reality (as it is known in the suburbs).

Hearty congratulations are due PlayFest Director Ron Herman for this year’s palette of local drama, and to Actors Theater Director Doug Bechtel, for bringing the acting muse to Orcas audiences — and to a new crop of local theater “people.”

The plays will be presented at the Grange Saturday May 5, and Sunday May 6. Then Friday May 11, Saturday May 12, and closing on Sunday May 13. All performances are at 7:30PM. This family-friendly event is $5 for adults and children. Tickets are available at Darvill’s, on the web at www.orcasactors.com and at the door. For additional information call Ron Herman, (831) 234-4960. And remember no one is ever turned away for inability to pay.