Summer Shorts 2: Series A

J.J. Kandel and John McCormack present Summer Shorts 2, their second annual festival of new American short plays at 59E59 Theaters.  These 4 plays make up Series A, I'll be reviewing Series B next week.

The Waters of March
By Leslie Lyles
Directed by Billy Hopkins

This is a lovely, if too short, monologue delivered effortlessly by Amy Irving.  She plays a singer who has come back to New York for her annual concert at the Algonquin only to discover that she's been fired and replaced by someone younger and no one told her.  Recuperating in a friend's apartment with glorious windows, she speaks frankly and often humorously to the audience about her hopes and plans.  Irving is fearless in the role, and gives a wonderful performance- the play might not, indeed, be as good as the performance.  She also sings- one song (Jobim's "The Waters of March") is fractured throughout the piece, as she keeps going back to a microphone, as if in the memory of a past concert.  She is accompanied gorgeously on guitar by Paul Megna.

Crossing the Border
By Eduardo Machado
Directed by Randall Myler

A father in Mexico (Mando Alvarado) is teaching his son baseball, and is very strict about the game, despite the insistence of his son (Gio Perez) that he'd rather be studying and reading - turns out he's so dogmatic because he wants his son to have a better life by getting out of the country to America, and the best way for a Latino to do that is through sports.  It's an amusing piece, well acted by Alvarado and Perez.

On a Bench
By Neil Konigsberg
Directed by Merri Milwe

This was the most satisfying piece of the evening.  A young man (David Beck) sits in a park, listening to his iPod, and reading a book.  A middle-aged woman (Mary Joy) sits on the next bench, and notices he's reading Martin Duberman's Stonewall, across from the Stonewall Inn.  She pulls him out of his self-imposed reverie, and the two begin to connect.  The piece is full of delightful surprise and an unusual sense of history.  Both actors are great and play off each other wonderfully, but Joy's grounded and hilarious performance steals the show, indeed, the whole evening. Her sense of the reality of a character who could easily have become a cartoon is a wonder to behold.  Merri Milwe directs wonderfully, letting the actors take their time.

Deep in the Hole
By Roger Hedden
Directed by Billy Hopkins

This fractured comedy of manners is about 4 aimless, kinda dumb folks who think they're incredibly wise- Ben (David Ross) and Glen (series producer J.J. Kandel), and Lindy (Kendra Mylnechuk) and Cindy (Emily Tremaine).  Ben and Cindy want to hook up.  Their secondary friends might hook up, too.  Ben has a thing about not drinking cheap vodka.  At a coyly sexual get-together, the four banter hilariously, until, before hooking up with Ben, Cindy brings out the Anthrax she stole from work- it was sent in a letter, and she didn't want to get fired for opening it, so she brought it home.  Although Anthrax scares are so totally 2001, some ingeniously funny performances, especially from Kandel and Tremaine, make this the comic highlight of the night.

There is one unit set for all the plays, designed by Maruti Evans, which is full of backlit shelves that cleverly contain all the set pieces and props for the plays.

Summer Shorts 2: Series A
59E59 Theaters

59 East 59th Street between Madison & Park Avenues

 
SERIES A PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE:
Fri 8/ 15 8:15, Sat 8/16 2:15, Tue 8/19 8:15, Wed 8/20 8:15,
Thu 8/21 8:15, Sun 8/24 3:15, Tue 8/26 8:15

$18 (59E59 MEMBERS $12.60)

Photo Credit: Carol Rosegg

1. Amy Irving in a scene from THE WATERS OF MARCH by Leslie Lyles, directed by Billy Hopkins
2. Gio Perez and Mando Alvarado in a scene from CROSSING THE BORDER by Eduardo Machado, directed by Randall Myler
3. David Beck and Mary Joy, in a scene from ON A BENCH by Neil Koenigsberg, directed by Merri Milwe
4. David Ross and J.J. Kandel in a scene from  DEEP IN THE HOLE by Roger Hedden, directed by Billy Hopkins

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