Word: one-acts
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...tunes as varied as Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying and You Won't Forget Me. Says jazz critic Martin Williams: "She's not only good and tasteful, but she also has that wonderful sense of drama that can turn any little song into a three-minute one-act play." Horn concedes, "Well, I'm a good actress. I've never had a lot of pain...
Bial finds the right blend of moralizing and merriment in the last one-act, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, by Dr. Seuss. Here the various citizen Whos take turns telling the tale, and both Bial and the cast skillfully intersperse the traditional storyline about the primacy of Christmas cheer with some inspired character choices. Lithgow expertly mimics the accent and demeanor of Jimmy Stewart, and Rainey's Robin [Leach] Who provides a humorous urbanity. Kanter's [Nazi] Doktor Who is splendidly drawn. "Und he whipped him und beat him," she exclaims, practically drooling in her excitement over the Grinch...
...atmosphere of this first one-act is depressing, and its moody manner alienated many of the small children in attendance. This is not of itself a flaw--the murky moral conflict and mediocre acting hurt this production more than the play's tone does. Only Lithgow, as the black-clad, cigarette-smoking Death, brings vigor to his character, but his grave voice fits the part more exactly than his mannerisms...
Good things come to those who wait, however, and the second one-act is a decided improvement on the first. In The Long Christmas Dinner, Thorton Wilder returns to Our Town territory as he examines the progression of time through a series of New England Christmas dinners with the Bayard family. While the moral (the more things change, the more they stay the same) is conventional, a number of strong performances and stark though effective staging immediatly command our attention...
Sexgod consists of two one-act works, Love Scene and A Theological Position. Love Scene presents the pantomime meeting of Man (Billy Hulkower) and Woman (Tanya Selvaratnam) controlled by an off-stage Director (Gammons) who barks his commands. Gammons attempts to create the magic meeting between Man and Woman by giving the characters bizarre motivations, once asking them to think of an old lady and a dog having...