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Running time 1:20 - No intermission
A monologue from a deeply disturbed former insurance man

Storyline: Alan Anton - whose name is mistaken by a fallen-off-the-wagon alcoholic for "Al"coholics "An"nonymous and so she calls him in the middle of the night looking for "a meeting" - is actually an out-of-work former insurance man from Erie PA whose mind has begun to freeze up under the stress of his own problems. He's floundering in the waters of the lake or the trauma of terrorist attacks or failures of career, marriage, and parenting. His mind can no longer distinguish between his own hopes, dreams, frustrations and failures and those of other generations.

Stezin continues to provide provocative pieces of theater, from single act solo shows to big-cast multi act works. We profiled him back in June of 2004 and you can get some background on him here. Since then, he's written Sleeping and Waking, which was a Potomac Stages Pick in June of last year, as well as performed in such things as the comedy/drama of family relations, Short Order Stories, by Renee Calarco and the touching production of Side Man at Keegan. This monologue piece was workshoped at the Earl Hamner Jr. Playwright's Conference in Southern Virginia and then performed as part of the Source Festival earlier this year. At the Hamner, a local actor named Trey Childs handled the monologue but at Source Jason Lott joined the effort.

Lott is another well known member of the Potomac Region's rich community in the theater arts, an actor who has worked at most of the smaller and some of the major theaters in region. He can list shows at over a dozen local companies but has never worked at Charter before this. His performance is powerful and attractive, earning the audience's interest and involvement from the very start of the monologue and keeping it unflagging through a somewhat overlong course. In part due to the pacing that John Vreeke's direction gives to the performance, the short evening is never less than interesting and often it rises far above that level.

Klyph Stanford's lighting tends to shift a bit too obviously as Lott shifts from one segment of memory to another, but there is one nifty effect at the very beginning of the show. The transition from house lights to stage lighting is so subtle that it helps draw the audience into the world of the play without the usual moment of transition that is triggered by a curtain opening or a moment of darkness.  

Written by Chris Stezin. Directed by John Vreek. Design: Keith Bridges (set) Klyph Stanford (lights) Ray Gniewek (photography) Melissa Miller (stage manager). Cast: Jason Lott.

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Running time 2:05 - one intermission
Insightful comic vignettes on the theme of race

Storyline: A comedic look at very serious issues surrounding race in contemporary American society is structured as a set of vignettes performed by a cast of five. While three are black and two are white, everyone in the house - cast or audience - is declared an "honorary negro" for the evening so that no one will take umbrage at any of the humor.

This fun evening with a point first played at the Hamner Theatre in Nelson County in central Virginia last month with three of these cast members, Edward Daniels, Matthew Eisenberg and Paige Hernandez, whose pert presence is the first indication you get of just how positive the piece is going to be. She announces the designation of everyone in the house as black for the duration with just the right lighthearted manner. Two new members of the cast are Brittney K. Sweeney, who contributes to such vignettes as one with a sharp point about a college housing official trying to deal with a dispute between roommates. It seems that an African American from the south can't agree that his assigned roommate from Manchester, England, qualifies as a "brother" despite his Nigerian heritage.

That African American student with a parochial view of ethnicity is played with confidence by the other addition to the cast since the run at the Hamner, David Lamont Wilson. Wilson was doing just the sound design for the show when it was first mounted, but has now taken on acting duties as well. He acquits himself nicely, providing key comic parts but making the most positive impression in a scene on a bus which he narrates in verse. In another, the full cast gets involved in the "International Slang Council" routine where arbiters of Hip Hop taste debate the acceptability of new words for the genre.

With just a few chairs and a desk on a two-platform stage, separate locales for the vignettes are quickly and efficiently created. A projection screen at the rear reveals the title of each as it begins ("Manchester Black" or "Guilty Pleasures," for example). The strength of this piece is in its language, its humor, its humanity and its generous spirit - not in elaborate sets or visual effects. It is an enjoyably engaging evening without rancor but not without a strong viewpoint.

Written by Clinton Johnston. Directed by George Grant. Design: Erin Powers (set) Megan Allen (lights and stage management) David Lamont Wilson (sound) Raymond Gniewek (photography). Cast: Edward Daniels, Matthew Eisenberg, Paige Hernandez, Brittney K. Sweeney, David Lamont Wilson. 

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Running Time: 1:25 - no intermission
A tongue-in-cheek evening with assured actors
 

Storyline: The life story of a cuckold husband, whose seemingly pure wife is a bundle of sexual energy; while his work life slowly disintegrates until he finally breaks in a fit of madness and takes his revenge on those with larger, more proficient male parts and male skills.

With some bright and bouncy lines written by Bridges and delivered by an ensemble clearly in a playful mood, this is not the dark comedy that it seems it wants to be. Ridiculous, perhaps. Offensive, not really. Off-color humor, nada. Camp, no way. Farce, there we go! But this production is not to be judged along normal standards. F.U. is all about an attempt at a style and attitude rather than substance in what playwright Bridges has provided on paper. He has developed a play with a number of short 7-10 minute scenes revolving around the life of a loser of a husband who is also a loser at work; surrounded by more sexually and linguistically vibrant people. What director Bano has asked of his cast is to exaggerate and make everything overly significant and important, so that the gags are laid on with a backhoe full of monkey poop, as one of the later scenes makes abundantly clear. It does get a little tedious after a while  when the “cool” production keeps saying to the audience “watch us; we are ‘cool ... and if you don’t see that, then you are dense and dim-witted.” One can thank Bano for casting such a talented ensemble with outstanding text delivery skills.

The four actors completely enjoying themselves are Allyson Currin (the wife), Michael Skinner (the husband), Ray Ficca (the husband’s friend) and Sarah Medlina (both “bad” girl and an Asian co-worker). Currin is the 30ish, sex-starved wife who finds happiness in the arms of an apparently well-endowed, but unseen accountant. Currin is all facial expressions, copious eye movements and voluptuous curves, and, once she takes off her figure shielding red dress, her bosom is a prop. Ficca is just a total joy as the man with the motor mouth who does not want to be “sassed with” and has more descriptions of the sex act and sexual proclivities of women than this reviewer has heard spit out since his days in the military (“this Tet was not offensive”). Melinda has accents and voice modulations that are just exuberant fun. She is truly amusing in her all-out abandon as an Asian co-worker with a penchant for spicy foods and men’s bad breath. When she is another character named Cinnamon or a strip joint dancer she is at one with her body and can make her derrière into an object of great joy for any man, or woman for that matter, to contemplate. Skinner is the schlub in every scene, over and over again, until a final moment when he finds his manhood. He looks the part with hunched over shoulders and a pinched voice.

The Theatre on the Run black box is what it is … small and cramped. The space is decent enough for something like this comedy which is a drawing room style production. Lighting is pretty basic, as are the set pieces which are rolled in and out and go from dinning room tables to office tables to a bar. The music selected by Dane Peterson is a high point. Pre-show music sets up the show with its selections to tout the sexuality of the script and the war between the sexes. Musical selections also entertain between scenes.

Written by Keith Bridges. Directed by Joe Banno. Design: Chris Stezin (set) Kate Mattingly (costumes) Nan Ficca (properties) Dan Martin (lights) Dane Peterson (sound) Rich Ching (stage manager). Cast: Allyson Currin, Ray Ficca, Sarah Melinda, and Michael Skinner.

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Running time 2:00 -  one intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for a fascinating exploration of a topical issue extremely well written and superbly performed

Storyline: Sixty years into the future, medical science has developed the ability to transplant a healthy head from an injured or diseased body onto the healthy body of a brain-dead donor. The first patient to have such a successful "head transplant" faces a series of emotional challenges as he attempts to adjust to life in a different body, while his family and friends have different challenges dealing with him.

Stezin has a topic here that spins off so many ethical, emotional and personal questions that it must have been tempting to focus on just one or a very few. But doing that would mask the enormity of the topic, and it is that very enormity that seems to interest him. In this age of organ transplants, artificial insemination, genetic engineering, chemical manipulation of bodily functions and micro-technology for prosthetic body-parts, the topics for consideration seem practically endless. Stezin doesn't ignore any of them, but avoids allowing them to overwhelm the personal story of his protagonist and the people in his world that can make the story so captivating to an audience. He creates a very real individual in the character whose head sits on another's body, and puts him through crises in his marriage (and not just from sexual relations), his friendships, his career and his spiritual life. Through it all, Stezin proves again his ability to write tight, thoughtful and appropriately funny or touching dialogue and monologues.

Ian Le Valley's performance is the centerpiece of a fine ensemble. There is outstanding work from Susan Marie Rhea, who is completely believable as his wife who is having less difficulty with his physical changes than he is. Paige Hernandez' performance grows throughout the evening. She's the younger woman to whom he turns in the search for comfort that doesn't constantly remind him that he is a different man. Ray Ficca does his usual fine job as the neighbor/friend who sticks with him through all his problems. Even the smaller parts get smart performances. Jennifer Richter has a single scene but it is an affecting one. Nicola Daval does about as much as could be done with the role of his mother, whose love of her son conflicts with her beliefs.

Stezin even makes the donor whose body is now topped by the protagonist's head a very real presence in the piece although not a character. Le Valley gives him his due in monologues that describe the experience of their two spirits during the operation which gives new meaning to the term "near-death experience." Two spirits hovering above the operating tables. One going one way. The other staying behind. What faces the departing one isn't at issue here. What faces the remaining one is, and Stezin mines that material for all it is worth.

Written by Chris Stezin. Directed by Keith Bridges. Design: Keith Bridges and Chris Stezin (set) Katie Mattingly (costumes)  Klyph Stanford (lights) Keith Bridges (sound)  Ray Gniewek (photography) Laura Qunezel (stage manager). Cast: Nicola Daval, Ray Ficca, Paige Hernandez, Ian Le Valley, Susan Marie Rhea, Jennifer Richter.

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Running time 2:00 - one intermission
A comedy/drama about a man whose 37 kidney stones aren't the most painful thing in his life
v Includes brief glimpses of nudity

Storyline: 37 kidney stones have passed from the body of a man who has had to overcome the ill effects not just of physical pain but of an overly possessive mother who, with a little help from her sister, has tried to keep him from having a life of his own.

This being Charter Theater, this is the world premiere of Mark Charney's play. Sometimes, premieres leave you thinking the author needs to keep working on his or her draft to get it to the stage where it is ready for a paying audience. This one is no exception. There are some chronological complexities that could be clarified, and the character of the mother could use a bit of backstory to let the audience understand just how her maternal instinct got so warped. However, the combined talents of director Richard Washer and his cast cover most of the problems with charm and a sense of enthusiasm.

Michael Skinner is funny and charming when not bent over in excruciating pain. He and Sarah Melinda, who plays his girlfriend, are an attractive couple. Skinner also has some good "buddy scenes" with Ray Ficca, as his brother, who grew up to be a (catch the symbolism?) urologist. However, his scenes with Jane E. Petkofsky and Caren Anton as the inexplicably domineering mother and her partner in crime, "Aunt Fanny," are not as successful. It is almost as hard to understand why, at age forty-four, her son is still ensnarled in her apron strings as it is to understand why Petkofsky's cocktail swigging semi "Mamma Dearest" is as destructive as she is.

Set designer Chris Stezin has given the company a tightly confined playing space, assembling the black box at Theatre On The Run in a theater in the round configuration with two rows of seats on two sides and one row each on the other two. It is a very intimate arrangement which not only results in a few up-close-and-personal encounters with the cast, it gives you a more immediate exposure of the hero's affected genitals than some would want. Suspended over it all is a crystalline structure that is part Christmas tree ornament, part genital torment.

Written by Mark Charney. Directed by Richard Washer. Design: Chris Stezin (set) Kate Mattingly (costumes) Klyph Stanford (lights) Vinnie Simonette (sound) Ray Gniewek (photography) Laura Qunezel (stage manager). Cast: Caren Anton, Ray Ficca, Sarah Melinda, Jane E. Petkofsky, Michael Skinner.

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Running time 1:25 - no intermission
A sketch comedy program on the theme of America's phobias
Performances at the National Conservatory for Dramatic Arts
1556 Wisconsin Avenue NW,

Storyline: Twenty comedy sketches delivered by a pair of performers cover some of the things that Franklin Delano Roosevelt said was the only thing we had to fear . . . fear itself.

Baldesari has written a series of sketches that hit a contemporary nerve as well as touching on some long time phobias that one suspects aren't limited to Americans. Some are highly influenced by the popular culture reflected on television - newscasters who use outlandish teasers to urge you to tune it at 11 for the "full story" of the latest danger, or weathercasters ("pseudo-meteorologists") who tout film of floods, blizzards or wind damage.

Those who recall Jim Helein as a white cockatoo in Monkeyboy will not be surprised by his willingness to throw himself full steam ahead into any comic concept. He doesn't disappoint here. Renee Calarco joins in the fun. She's the lady who wrote Short Order Stories which Charter premiered last year. Here she manages to throw a few barbs in the direction of Helen Hayes Award judges - from the "mouth" of Helen Hayes herself! Helein and Calarco work well  together as a team, as is clearly apparent from the beginning with the opening lampoon of security announcements. They occasionally seem to have had a bit too little rehearsal, but they should be able to polish their timing further during the run.

Some of the targets are obvious (the Transportation Security Administration airport screeners) and some are a stretch (a ghost tour of Georgetown). But many are spot on, and genuinely funny. The best of the bunch is actually a solo bit by Calarco who "arrives late," takes a seat in the audience and proceeds to complain about the very thing they are doing . . . calling sketch comedy a play. Charter Theater and the small basement theater in which they are performing are frequent targets. Such self depreciative humor is refreshing. At least it is for the first couple of times the gag is pulled.

Written by Mario Baldessari. Directed by Keith Bridges. Cast: Renee Calarco, Jim Helein.

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Running time 2:15 - one intermission
A new comedy/drama of family relations

Storyline: When taking their daughter off to college, a couple stops for lunch at a small town diner where it just so happens that also stopping for lunch are their daughter's former boyfriend and his father, who has links to their family as well. Their conversations reveal the depth of the connections between them as well as the stresses within each family. At the same time, the cook and the waitress in the diner have their own issues brewing.

Playwright Calarco stretches from time to time to connect the stories and to compress events into one encounter in each act. However, she creates seven distinct characters, each of whom captures the audience's interest and sympathy. She gives each a unique voice which matches and even reveals character. There are many funny lines and the performers get many laughs from the audience, but she rarely seems to be setting up a gag in her dialogue, and the laughs are not at the expense of the characters. She has structured the play to provide multiple perspectives of the same events, even going to the point of repeating moments from different views. Director Calarco takes that concept and runs with it. As the first production of the company at the Theatre On The Run, the show could not be mounted on a rotating turntable, so Calarco put some of the set pieces on wheels and has the cast rotate the diner's tables, chairs, benches and even the pass-through from the kitchen in order to shift the view. It gives the production a unique feel and works very smoothly.

The three parents here are Lee Mikeska Gardner, in a touching performance that goes from early quirky mannerisms to later deep emotions and tears, Timmy Ray James who is brittle as a newly-divorced dad seeing his life fall apart, and Andy Brownstein as a father and husband incapable of honest displays of affection. Gardner's is the performance that draws the most attention, and she is marvelous in it, but Brownstein overcomes the greatest barrier to audience acceptance. He finds ways to show that his character clearly has the emotions of love, appreciation and pride in subtle gestures beneath the bluster that acts as his defense mechanism. Sharing the bulk of the start of the second act, Chris Stezin and Kerrie Seymour make a fine pair of fast friends without a romantic relationship. It's always a pleasure to watch Stezin work, for he finds mannerisms and activities that bring a character to life. Just watch him chop onions.

The college-bound kids in this case are Anne Veal, a senior in the theater program at American University, and Michael Grew, just out of the University of Maryland. Veal creates character well before her first line, drawing silence out in an indication of alienation as a rebellious and not too happy teen. Grew was appealing at the Kennedy Center last month in a reading of Joe Calarco's Holding Pattern where he demonstrated a fine touch in supporting other performers when they had lengthy speeches. (He played opposite Nancy Robinette who held forth at great length in a delightful comic turn made all the more fun by Grew's reactions.) Here he gets to be a focus of dialogue scenes and again demonstrates the ability to work in tandem, especially in a scene where he and Veal climb back and forth between the front and rear seats of a car. Whether it was their idea, director Calarco's concept or even writer Calarco's stage directions in the script, the touch of having Grew and Veal scrunch down as they clamber over the seats, as if they had to squeeze between seat back and the imagined ceiling of the car, was particularly effective.

Written by Renee Calarco. Directed by Joe Calarco. Design: Victor Stezin and Michael Skinner (set) Cat Martin (costumes and properties) Emily Lagerquist (lights) Keith Bridges (sound) Ray Gniewek (photography) Laura Qunezel (stage manager). Cast: Andy Brownstein, Lee Mikeska Gardner, Michael Grew, Timmy Ray James, Kerrie Seymour, Chris Stezin, Anne Veal.

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Reviewed May 12
Running time 1:50 - no intermission
A standup magic act with patter

Storyline: None to speak of. Magic tricks are linked together with a slim narrative about Barry Wood's childhood and his fascination with things advertised in comic books - things like x-ray vision glasses and hypnotic coins. He also slips into the character of his mother and father as he sets up various tricks. But it remains just a magic show.

Frankly, the press release announcing the show was funnier than the show. It included lines like "this is a comedy that will make ... well ... dollars. We hope. At least enough to keep the lights on through June" and ""I don't know why I cast Barry in the role (Producer Keith) Bridges said but every time I thought of not casting him, I would get these sharp, shooting pains in my left eye. It felt like someone was sticking a needle in it." Bridges then folded his arms, clucked like a chicken and pecked the dust specs on the theater floor. 'Buck buck bukawk,' said Bridges."

This solo standup show is performed by Barry Wood who shares writing credit with Mario Baldessari and Jim Helein, his fellow members of the comedy troupe Dropping the Cow who were responsible for last year's sketch-comedy revue Sacred Cows. (Charter regulars will also know Helein as the very funny white cockatoo in "Monkeyboy.")

The material is presented on a set consisting of many cardboard boxes and a soft recliner representing Wood's parents basement where his childhood memories are stored. That, and some changes in lighting effects to signal the shift from current time to flashback memories, are nods toward theater traditions, but they are certainly too thin to make a magic act into a comic play.

Written by Mario Baldessari, Jim Helein and Barry Wood. Directed by Keith Bridges. Design: Emily Lagerquist (lights) Sandy Kavalier (photography) Meredith Spisak (stage manager). Cast: Barry Wood.

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Reviewed January 6
Running time 2:10 - one intermission
The premiere of an outrageous comedy
 on an outlandish theme

There are plenty of comic gems from each of the human performances, but the memory that will linger longest from this funny evening is that of Helein as the obnoxious bird. Decked out all in white except for a bright yellow cravat, with a white streak through his pompadour, birdlike darting head movements and his hands held in like claws, you need no explanation of his genus. Bridges and Lambert work well together in their collective desperation to get rid of the bird and Ray Ficca is exceptionally funny in his posturing as a man they meet through the internet who turns out to be the former ... well, why give it all away?

Imaginations go really wild in a separate "Dream Ballet" which opens the second act. There is no separate credit for choreography, but the three minute segment is well conceived and well controlled, striking its absurd best quickly and avoiding stretching it out longer than the humor allows. As a result, it is a highlight with the most laughs per minute of the entire piece.

The foolishness takes place on a simple set of wooden furring strips suggesting a cage and a scattering of feathers (nothing to rival Available Light at Signature those many years ago, thank goodness) with a few well conceived lighting effects to signal the switch in locale to the South American jungle.

Written by Keith Bridges, Chris Stezin and Richard Washer. Directed by Joy Thomas. Design: Victor Stezin (set) Emily Lagerquist (lights and photography) Meredith Spisak (stage manager). Cast: Rachel Bridges, Ray Ficca, Jim Helein, Hope Lambert.

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Reviewed October 14
Running time 2:05 - one intermission
A dramatic four-character show raising issues of parental love and duty

Storyline: A man wants to build a boat that will take him away from the mess he has made of his life. Building his Swampscott Dory (a small dingy that can hold four people, or one person and his baggage) may be as therapeutic as actually sailing it, as he tries to lose himself in the woodworking. Try as he may, however, he simply can't avoid the pressures of being the father of a grown son with possibly terminal health problems and the estranged husband in a failed marriage, all while the burden of his behavior when he was facing legal action in his career haunts him.

Coy's new play covers such a wide range of topics. How does a man cope with demands he's unwilling or unable to meet? How does he make any sort of piece with his failures as a parent, as a spouse, as a friend and/or in his career? In this case, the weight of past failures is multiplied by a current unwillingness to accept responsibilities. There are almost too many themes going on, as if Coy has too much material for any one play, and the piece doesn't resolve itself cleanly or clearly, but that may well be Coy's ultimate statement on the matter.

The characters he has created are all well constructed and quite interesting and he leaves enough ambiguity in their histories to give the audience a great deal to ponder. Michael Skinner's character (named "Conn" - short for conscience?) is the most enigmatic. The cast works together nicely. There is an electric spark to the sexual energy between Adams and Lambert in flash-backs to a happier time, and a feeling of camaraderie between Adams and Skinner as their character's apparently convoluted history is revealed. It is a bit more difficult for Anderson to establish a relationship with the others because the illness that has triggered so many of the pressures that tear this family apart stand in the way. Instead, he creates a separateness, an aloneness that works well.

There is an immediacy about any production in the confined space in the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art's basement, and Charter has learned to use it well, notwithstanding the two pillars that block an occasional view. Indeed, Anderson's first two appearances on stage were not visible from this reviewer's seat. Still, they were brief appearances and there were plenty of opportunities to see his character develop as he ventured further and further into the center of the action. Strangely, there is no credit for sound design -- the production benefits from one marvelous special audio effect, an all encompassing, surround-sound treatment of gunshots that could be echoey because of confined space, or just as plausibly, because they emanate from memory.

Written by Peter Coy. Directed by Chris Stezin. Design: Victor Stezin (set) Keri Schultz (costumes) Thom Seymour (lights) Meredith Spisak (stage manager). Cast: Kevin Adams, Denman C. Anderson, Hope Lambert, Michael Skinner.

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Reviewed May 14
Running time 2:00 - one intermission
Playing at the National Conservatory of the Dramatic Arts at Wisconsin and Q in Georgetown
Fine performances but text still needs work

Storyline: A woman wakes in a brightly lit but nonetheless isolated dungeon where she seems to be being held for interrogation on some unspecified charge. An android of a computer recites historical information while a hostess of sorts sees to her needs. A young man who seems to be a friend of the hostess turns out to be the woman's son, while an officious preacher controls access and conducts interrogations. What is happening? It is never revealed.

A cast of five works diligently to keep the interest of the audience through this fairly short two act play. Lee Mikeska Gardner is fascinating to watch as the woman struggling to understand just where she is and why. The fire in her eyes and the flitting expressions which give away even the reactions her character is trying to conceal as she probes the mystery of her confinement are fascinating. Her scene with Denman Anderson, who plays her son, is a fine contest of wills.

Ray Ficca is suitably smarmy as the preacher who seems to want to know something, but also seems already to know all the answers. Both Tricia McCauley as the text spouting android and Sarah Melinda as the confused caretaker add a dash of interest to what are really underdeveloped parts.

Special note should be made of the work of Kerri Schultz, longtime stage manager for shows at the Washington Stage Guild, who designed the costumes for this production. Rarely do costume designers get recognition for shows that call for non-descript outfits that are not supposed to communicate time and place. But Shultz's spot-on non-descript prison dress for Gardner, rumpled finery for Ficca slightly reminiscent of Elmer Gantry, and age and status spanning outfit for Anderson do just what good costume design should do: let an audience absorb information about a character or situation without being aware of it.

Written by Richard C. Washer. Directed by Keith Bridges. Design: Ryann Lee (set) Kerri Schultz (costumes) Klyph Stanford (lights) Eamon Coy (stage manager). Cast: Denman Anderson, Ray Ficca, Lee Mikeska Gardner, Tricia McCauley, Sarah Melinda.

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Reviewed January 7
Running time 2:20 - with, as the program says,
"a series of 15 one-minute intermissions
 all in a row in the middle of the show"

Storyline: A sketch-comedy program punctures pomposity, intolerance and false charm wherever its authors perceive them in the modern world of established religion in America from the routine of the televangelist to the secret thoughts of the attendants who pass the collection plates on poles through the congregation of the neighborhood church.

The title "Sacred Cows" is a neat double play combining the name of the sketch comedy troupe from which Helein and Baldessari hail, Dropping the Cow, and the topic of this collection. Dropping the Cow began on the ground floor of the building that houses the National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts where this program is being performed at Wisconsin Avenue and Volta Street in Georgetown.

Baldessari is a slender reed of a fellow while Helein is, well, the opposite. There's about as much chance of mixing them up as of mistaking Stan Laurel for Oliver Hardy. Yet there is a sense of connection between them, a chemistry that works very well. They always seem to be on the same page, working on the same thought or the same point and they do seem to anticipate each other's pacing quite well. There is an intensity to each performer's delivery of punch lines, and the eye contact between the pair in their exchanges amplifies the enjoyment as well.

Still, there are dead spots in some of the many funny routines that could be excised with relative ease. The father telling his son the story of Jonah and the Whale (or Big Fish - a la "Jaws") seems to pause on its way from comic format to a strong punch line, the televangelism program, The 1400 Club's news, sports and weather from a Christian Perspective, has three or four great lines but dies in the middle and the concept of a talk-show with God as the guest proves just too tempting to the team as they go on about ten percent too long. Indeed, the best bit in the piece consists of just four words, delivered by Baldessari as the maitre 'd of a restaurant about to host the last supper. It is the most precise, highest polished and, therefore, funniest moment of the show.

Written and performed by Mario Baldessari and Jim Helein. Directed by Keith Bridges. Design Ryann Lee (set) Klyph Stanford (lights) Sandy Kavalier (photography) Rebecca Trotter (stage manager). 

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Reviewed September 24
Running time 1:55 - one intermission
Playing at The Warehouse on 7th Street NW
t A Potomac Stages Pick for stylish acting and distinctive dialogue

Storyline: A reclusive photographer recruits a young waitress to be the subject for his new photo shoot, but it turns out he can do thousands of shots to get a single one he considers adaptable and the shoot stretches over many sessions. Is this a case of artistic perfectionism, a stalker or a developing partnership?

Currin's new two-character comic drama is well structured, revealing more and more about both the characters and about the situation in which they find themselves as the evening progresses. The developments flow naturally out of the situation without seeming contrived but without being terribly predictable either, no mean trick when dealing with a relatively simple story where character is more the topic than is plot. The source of the intrigue isn't really "what's going to happen" or even "how did these people get into this situation?" - it is the way in which each copes with the circumstance of the moment that is so very interesting.

Currin’s ability to write great give-and-take dialogue is very much on display here and it is, as always, a pleasure to follow, especially when delivered by the likes of Coons and Stezin. They share an ability to make tightly constructed dialogue seem to be springing directly from their nimbly functioning minds, not like something memorized in advance. Add the contrast between Coons' fluid body language for a character so apparently comfortable in her own skin and Stezin’s appropriately stiffer postures which puts a premium on facial expression, especially the eyes, to communicate an intensity approaching obsession.

Performances are in the tiny "Warehouse Next Door," a back room set up with a set of risers accommodating less than 40 seats. Such intimacy puts a premium on subtlety in the performances and in the design. Here a screen, a divan and two photographer's light stands constitute the uncredited set along with a group of hanging cabinets which play a role in the story. There is no credit for costumes either and yet there are telling points made with each characters' outfits, especially Coons' multiple purses and brightly colored fabrics. Just as with the script itself and the delivery, everything on display shows signs of intelligent attention to detail.

Written by Allyson Currin. Directed by Richard Washer. Design: Keri Schultz (stage manager). Cast: Cathleen Koons, Chris Stezin.

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Reviewed February 26
Running time 1 hour 45 minutes

Storyline: A tornado has struck the small town of Early, South Carolina leaving the local trailer park all but destroyed. Nothing much remains but one unaccountably untouched trailer. The only sign of the storm on it is a piece of debris that came to rest on its roof - a statue of the Virgin Mary. The occupant of the trailer, the residents of the town, a reporter from the local television station and visitors from afar speculate on the meaning of the presence of the statue - was it a fluke or a sign?

Lew Holton's script gathers together some of the stereotypes of southern rural trailer culture but this is no mean-spirited put-down from the pen of a yankee. Holton may have studied in the north and taught theater on Long Island, but he was born in the Carolinas and has returned there to write. His affection for the people about whom he writes shows through, making what might otherwise have been demeaning and dismissive come across as warm and appreciative. Each of the sixteen characters are broad parodies but each also is grounded in some sense of reality. The TV reporter's hope for an important scoop to improve her career chances, the strip-joint operator who sees financial gain in every event, the good ol' boy just concerned for his dogs, the high school guidance counselor with only two years to go before a pension - all these and more are parodied with a wink and a smile, not a superior smirk.

Hope Lambert plays some but not all of the women's roles, each cleanly differentiated. Charter's own Associate Artistic Director, playwright and frequent actor, Chris Stezin, dons a series of wigs and personalities as well, each given a sharply humorous take. Strongest of the bunch, however, is the collection of wacky characters Ray Ficca creates with the manipulation of angular postures, vocal mannerisms and hand gestures as he fits between half a dozen roles.

Director Rachel Gardner Bridges has her cast maintaining a focus on a world outside the trailer park setting of the play with eye contact somewhere above the heads of the audience. It is an effective device for scenes such as Ficca's television reports but gets a bit distracting when taken to extremes. Bridges never lets the energy level of the short two act piece sag for a moment. She gets in a subtle nod to the fact that this is a new, small, intimate theater for the company by having the cast knock on the door, causing a member of the audience to let them in so they can start the show. The hall itself is an elongated rectangle of a black box with fewer than 60 chairs set around a playing space. Those chairs aren't as comfortable as they look, with backs that flex so easily you really can't lean against them, but the action on Keith Bridges' nifty little set is compelling enough that the audience may want to lean forward throughout the show anyway.

Written by Lew Holton. Directed by Rachel Gardner Bridges. Design: Keith Bridges (set) Thom Seymour (lights) Kerrie Brown (props/costume coordinator) Vincent A. Simonette (sound) Joy Thomas (stage manager). Cast: Ray Ficca, Hope Lambert, Chris Stezin.

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Reviewed October 19
Running time 1 hour 20 minutes
t Potomac Stages Pick

Storyline: This is a story of a son and his relationship with his father, filtered through the son’s memories after the father's death. From early childhood, when he remembers his dad being bitten by a squirrel, through adulthood, when he blames the failure of his marriage on his father’s bigotry, the son struggles with their love/hate relationship.

As if anyone who has been paying attention over the last few years needed any evidence, Chris Stezin demonstrates his ability to carry a show on his own shoulders with this comic/dramatic monologue that carries the audience through a wide range of emotions, and twists and turns of plot points in less than an hour and a half. From his light tossing off of flippant observations to the moment he actually tears up when looking at the last vestige of his presence in the home he shared with his former wife (his phone number scribbled above the wall phone) this is an affecting performance of note.

The script is full of the kind of literate material that monologueists long for. Take, for example, the digression on the phrase “the imagination runs wild” - “what better place for an imagination to run than wild?” Or look at the discourse on doughnut holes - “I came to rely on the doughnut holes more than the whole doughnuts.” John Walch’s writing is literate but, in Stezin’s delivery, it never seems to be stretching a point. Instead, it illuminates details that draw the audience into the world of this boy/man who hasn’t shaken loose of his father’s failures.

The little black box theater of the National Academy is a marvelous space for a work of this scale. Thom Seymour has created a set out of simply painting the back wall and the floor. Rachel Gardner adds to the theatricality of the show with a soundscape that runs from the tick tick tock of a clock to the click of a slide projector. She does her best work, however, when she lets silence surround Stezin, for that is where the concentration belongs.

Written by John Walch. Directed by Keith Bridges. Design: Thom Seymour (set and lights) Rachel Gardner (sound) Joy Thomas (stage manager.) Cast: Chris Stezin.

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May 7 – 25, 2003
Watching Left

Reviewed May 9
Running time 1 hour 15 minutes

Storyline: Grace is the victim - she was kidnapped, held, tortured and terrorized then unexplainably released to resume her life. Her brother has tried to help but is approaching the limits of how much he can give. Her father has tried to be a dutifully supportive parent but has finally begun to succumb to an instinctive sense of denial. Her lover wants a level of intimacy and partnership Grace simply can’t sustain. It has been five years, will she ever recover?

Bridges’ creation may be painful to watch but his brutally honest text, the superb performance by Rachel Gardner and the unmannered directness of the three supporting performers makes it something from which it is difficult to turn away.

Gardner is the personification of internalized pain. She doesn’t strike out. She doesn’t let loose. She suffers. It is clear that her sense of deserving has been shattered and Bridges and Gardner leave you wondering just what constitutes survival, let alone recovery. Each of the supporting cast do double duty. Jim Brady does a particularly good job of creating two different characters as Grace’s father and her boss at the store at which she has a job for an hour or so.

Bridges has said this play is “about forgiving the unforgivable and the challenges to our very humanity that torture presents” and the press release announcing Charter’s production of its premiere says it is “about the miracle of survival.” Yet the result seems more a portrait of pain with only hints of resolution than any resolution to Grace’s or the world’s dilemma. As a result, it feels more like the compelling first act of a fuller work. 

Written by Keith Bridges. Directed by Richard Washer. Design: Chris Stezin (set) Thom Seymour (lights) Dayana Yochim (costumes and properties) Vincent A. Simonette (audio) Joy T. Thomas (stage manager). Cast: Jim Brady, Kerrie Brown, Rachel Gardner, Michael Skinner.

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Reviewed January 11
Running time 2 hours
t Potomac Stages Pick

Chris Stezin is a very active local playwright and actor. Here both talents are on exhibit and both impress. But, while the acting is marvelous, it is the play that is the thing . . . actually, two plays: for the play What Dogs Do is about the complications surrounding the writing and presentation of the play What Dogs Do. A play about playwriting lets Stezin get in a lot of zingers about his own chosen profession – and a few directed at those who write about plays and productions. Most of those land squarely because the play is a very affectionate critique of the business and the peculiarities of working on words for public consumption. But it is more than that, because Stezin uses it as a way to explore larger issues – the nature of friendship, love, acceptance – all in the form of a very funny and frequently touching comedy.

Storyline: A struggling playwright who happens to be strait and his friend who happens to be gay, argue over whether a gay-themed play would be accepted if written by the strait guy. So the playwright, on a bet, writes what he thinks would be termed “a touching testament to the human spirit” if written by a gay but “a trite and predictable piece of drivel” if it was known that he wrote it. They publish it under the gay friend's name and it turns out to be a hit. How should they handle the complications involving their families, their lovers and, just as importantly, the call from New York Times drama critic Frank Rich?

Stezin works in a wide range of styles. His Helen Hayes Award nominated Hoboken Station was dark where this comedy is light, his segment in the currently running Sinking Up is a vignette for two where this is a tightly plotted two-act play with five developed characters. His A Walk Across the Rooftops which opens later this month at the Washington Shakespeare Company is touted as an homage to the film noire style. Here it is the light comedy structure and it works well because it has two things going for it – it has something to say and it is funny. Strange how many comedies reach the stage (or screen) with one or the other attribute but not both. What Dogs Do can make you think just as it makes you laugh. And it makes you laugh a lot. 

Stezin is not alone on stage, however. In fact, the part he plays is the second lead. Christopher Lane is the prime mover in the piece, a modern good ole boy whose redneck persona with the Ed’s Bait and Tackle baseball cap and southern drawl is a facade covering a deeply moral view of life. When the going gets tough, he stands by his principals and his friends. Along the way, Lane demonstrates a fine touch for a quick throwaway line, letting humor build on the building blocks of Stezin’s give and take dialogue which takes hold of a comic idea and won’t let go until it is fully developed. Then, in a touching scene early  in the second act, he turns serious just long enough to prove that the substance below the surface is real.

Rachel Gardner plays the love in the strait author’s life while Ray Ficca is the gay guy’s guy. Both are a bit too earnest in their moments on stage but do fine jobs of support which is the essence of a supporting actors’ role. Dennis A. Dulmage, the president of the National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts where Charter presents all of its plays, is the fifth member of the cast but no fifth wheel he. He takes what begins as a prototypical grumpy old man, stuck in his ways and angling for a come-upance and gives him the unexpected depth of feeling Stezin’s writing provides.

Written by Chris Stezin. Directed by Keith Bridges. Design: Keith Bridges, Thom Seymour, Chris Stezin, Richard Washer, Dayana Yochim with costume design by Maura McGinn. Cast: Christopher Lane, Chris Stezin, Rachel Gardner, Ray Ficca, Dennis A. Dulmage.

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Reviewed October 18
Running time 2 hours 5 minutes

Written by Peter Coy. Directed by Lee Mikeska Gardner. Music director Mike Goll. Design: Keith Bridges, Chris Stezin, Lee Mikeska Garnder, Thom Seymour. Cast: Christopher Lane, Amy McWilliams.

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Reviewed May 10
Running time 2 hours
t Potomac Stages Pick

Written by Paul Donnelly. Directed by Keith Bridges. Design: Chris Stezin (set) Adele Robey (costumes) Ayun Fedorcha (lights). Cast: Jon Cohn, Maura McGinn, Lee Mikeska Gardner, Jim Brady, Chris Stezin, Brittney K. Sweeney.

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Reviewed January 12
Running time 1 hour 55 minutes

Written by Allyson Currin. Directed by Keith Bridges. Design: Thom Seymour (set) Ayun Fedorcha (lights) Vincent A. Simonette (sound) Dayana Yochim (costumes.) Cast: Timmy Ray James, Rachel Gardner, Chris Stezin, Celeste Lawson.