Sketchbook ‘One
CollaborAction Theatre Com-pany describes its second annual festival of short plays as “a progressive mixed-media theatrical bazaar.” That’s just the sort of verbiage that makes me fear a theatrical cocktail made up of one part incoherence and two parts pretension, served with a twist of exhibitionism.
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Before the show begins an announcer informs us that “drawing is another way of thinking” and notes that, since the pieces are staged in various locations around the theater, we may find our view obstructed from time to time. “We encourage you to move to a place of unobstruction,” he helpfully suggests. And several audience members did just that, though most contented themselves with craning their necks to catch what was happening behind them.
Lindsay Price’s “Paper Thin” resembles John Cheever’s short story “The Enormous Radio” as reflected in a menacing fun-house mirror. Overhearing the fights of the newlyweds next door, a slightly older couple act them out in their own bizarre love play and games of one-upmanship. Director Eric Graves expertly veers from absurd slapstick to chilling violence, and Tim Curtis and Kristin Goodman hit all the notes of this gleefully dysfunctional duo, who reap pleasure from the misery of others. If Harold Pinter had created the execrable Big Brother, I think it might feel a bit like this. I mean that as a compliment.
All the directors succeed at making the cavernous Viaduct space feel intimate, paying careful attention to gestures, glances, and pauses, especially Saket Soni in Evan Cater’s “The Neighbor.” The Henrys–Hilary, Hank, Hal, and Hannah–are stuck in their home suffering from some form of agoraphobia. When the winsome teen daughter runs off to meet the neighbors, the rest of the family freezes in a tableau of terror and ends up being carted off on dollies as part of the scene change. Kenneth Lee’s fraidy-cat dad is a highlight of the festival, delivering Cater’s rather abstruse wordplay with assurance.
