Carte Blanche Stage Company presents its 3rd annual New Plays Festival this year. Cart Blanche's James Dragolovich has assembled a set of shorts that bring an interesting kind of diversity to the small stage just South of downtown. Here's a look at this year's program:
Happily Ever After, And Then Some--
I believe that's the Oxford comma in the title, but I'll try not to hold that against playwright Emily Craig's clever little mutation of classic fairy tales. It's an interesting reversal in conception--read any Grimm's Fairy Tale and you get the impression earlier cultures had of women . . . not a terribly good one. Those fairy tales end up being grossly misogynistic--a product of their times. Craig updates it considerably by playing up those elements of Snow White and Cinderella that truly were liberated. Here they are high-powered executives running their own companies. Miichelle White is fun as the passionate Cinderella who gets remarkably drunk in very little time. (They're meeting at a bar tended by Jack of the beanstalk . . . played as a flamboyant gay man by Alex Van Abel.) Carole Alt is suitably cold as Snow White. We get something of a lesson in human complexity thanks to a jerk of a Prince Charming played by Michael Keiley, who illustrates a changing attitude towards women. Even seen from a contemporary perspective, the villains that used to be heroes can still show complexity. Nothing is muted. Kind of an interesting concept that could be turned into something much more sophisticated if it was given room to breathe.
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Under the Bed--
Here's kind of an interesting one written by David Kaye. A couple of monsters are forced to negotiate with a little girl over which one of them is going to have the honor of working with her to get scared. The Pixar film Monsters Inc. covered the ground of childhood monsters in a much more comprehensive way but this is something drawn along similar lines that probably could have done with a more sophisticated staging. Annetta Martin plays the sweet little girl who is forced to confront her monsters, doing so in a very pragmatic and sophisticated manner that is nonetheless suitably adorable. They got the cuteness level right on her. The rest is a bit muddled. Richard Dickerson and Bill Fortier show real talent as a Bed Bug and a Dust Bunny respectively, but their performance doesn't quite live up to the script, which requires an ability to seem both goofy as monsters and remarkably grounded as educated figures who must each, in turn, present their case to the little girl as to who would be best suited to scaring her. It's a cute concept that definitely seems to be lacking something.
Back to the Bar--
After the first two shorts, there is an intermission.
A Man of Few Words--
The show switches gears pretty dramatically right after intermission with a dramatic comedy written by Greg Ryan. Nick Kaye plus the eldest son of a man who has passed on. In recognition of his late father's wishes, he is being called on to deliver a eulogy for his father--a man he didn't feel particularly close to. He is aided by brother and sister played by Alex Van Abel and Becca Segal. Greg Ryan's script sparkles in a few moments, but it's really, really difficult to jump in and out of this kind of depth in the span of a single short. Perhaps we need more time with these characters outside reminiscence of the later father to really lock-in their full reality as people. In any case, it works. ANd it works with some of the best performances in the whole program.
Turn Around--
This was easily my favorite new script on the program this time around. Carole Alt plays a young, timid woman who has just arranged to have a co-worker come over to watch some TV on DVD with her. She's extremely attracted to the woman who is coming over . . . which prompts the return of a darker, more passionate side of her . . . one that is much more aggressive and selfish. That side of her is played by "Anetta" Martin. The spelling is different in the program, but this is the same actress who played the adorable, little girl in Kaye's short on the other side of intermission. Here she's playing a sensual anti-hero. Granted, it's not particularly deep as a character, but she is only playing a small part of a larger psyche, so she's allowed to be kind of thin as a character. Martin and Alt struggle it out between each other to decide how the casual moment between her and her coworker will play out. It's an interesting dramatic struggle and Benka frames it quite well.
A Two-Part Intervention--
This is a return to an old piece written by John Jabaley which had appeared on the program before. Dragolovich and Van Abel play a couple of men plagued by a simple time warp that makes things very, very complicated for the both of them. The script is brilliantly concise and remarkably clever. Dragolovich and Van Abel reprise roles in what ended up sounding very much like an audience favorite again this year. This is sharp, witty stuff and it's executed quite well by Dragolovich and Van Abel. Just as fun a second time around.
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The Carte Blanche New Plays Festival runs through November 11th at Carte Blanche's space on 1024 South 5th Street. For more information, call 414-688-7313 or visit Carte Blanche online.
