Word: playlets
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...PARTY and THE BASEMENT are a pair of Pinter puzzlers that amuse as well as bemuse. The first playlet deals with a successful businessman whose system short-circuits when all the forces in his life-secretary, wife, children, parents-come together at an office gathering. In the second, two men and a girl try to conquer each other and their living space...
...second playlet, there is precious little mating or dancing. Johnny (Gerald S. O'Loughlin) and Wilma (Renee Taylor) have one of those marriages that resemble the state of chastity. This night, Wilma wants sex. But there is no love for Johnny, an advertising salesman who has just lost the Xerox account. As the pair bicker and belt each other a la Edward Albee's Virginia Woolf, it soon becomes clear that Wilma is twice the man Johnny is. Long ago, she kicked the living libido...
...twitchy dance of premarital jitters enlivens the third playlet. Mike (Marvin Lichterman) bursts into the apartment of his fiancee Susan (Mariclare Costello) at 4 a.m. to tell her that the wedding bells are not going to chime. Fluttering around like a chicken with its head cut off, he sputters out a dozen reasons why the match would be catastrophic: like, for instance, her arms are too thin. When his hysteria runs out of steam, Susan blandly and sweetly asks him if he and his father got fitted for their tuxedos today...
...fourth playlet depicts the mating dance as a marathon. Frank (Richard Castellano) and Bea (Helen Verbit) have been shuffling around together for more than 30 years. They can't imagine anything else, and while they remember an occasional hurt, such as Frank's infidelity, they can scarcely recall a joy. Yet they are appalled that their son Richy (Bobby Alto) is breaking up with his wife Joan (Candy Azzara) after only six years of marriage. The elders try to patch things up. But incompatibility and compatibility are equally obscure. Richy's and Joan's reasons...
...Leaf for the Patron. One striking example is the sort of drama presented by Berman, 26, a kinetic, spade-bearded expatriate from Maine. Devoted to what he calls "the Theater of Eros," he is at work on a six-playlet cycle under the collective title of Kiss My .... He believes that drama should be made accessible to people within their daily living patterns. Accordingly, his latest one-acter, The Nudist Campers Grow and Grow, goes on at Cafe Ambiance at lunch hour. Each patron is given a tree leaf if he cares to join the nude campers. A few have...