2008 Fall EATfest, Series C: Old Flame

When a theatre company has a regular stable of members, it's nice to be able to do plays that show off all of their actors. Unfortunately, sometimes boring plays get produced in order to utilize everyone, and that seems to be the case with Old Flame by Richard Ploetz, part of Emerging Artists Theatre's Fall EATfest. The EATfests usually consist of one-act plays, but this year Series C is given over to a full-length that should have shown off the talents of the EAT performers who are more advanced in age, and might have done if the script were not so boring.

Barbara Marchand (Vivan Meisner) is 69. The play begins on her birthday, which her husband Frank (Jerry Matz) forgot about (or just didn't want to make a fuss over). She gets a phone call from her high school sweetheart Mike (Angus Hepburn), who went away to Korea and came back to find her married to Frank. Now, remembering her birthday (the same as his, although he's a year older), he looks her up on the Internet and gives her a call. So they hang out. Then Barbara and Frank invite Mike and his wife Leonora (Jess Phillips) over. She's much younger and from another country. Mike is still in love with Barbara, Frank gets jealous, Barbara and Frank's son Marshall (an underutilized Ron Bopst) wonders if he might be Mike's son... All very by the book. There's very little surprise, surprisingly little character development, and that's about it. Things seem to be settled at the end of Act I (in fact, there was an announcement before the show asking people to stay for Act II), and then there's more. Not a lot of the show makes logical sense (Barbara gives Frank no reason to think she's cheating; no one gives any reason why Marshall might have been Mike's son- Barbara and Mike apparently never had sex, and Mike was out of the country for 3 months before she married Frank... can no one count? Was Marshall a suspiciously well-developed preemie?), and people end up being stupid because the script requires them to be so.

Meisner is very effective as Barbara, giving herself freely to each moment, even making some of the more clunky moments work- Her performance is a delight, though as she is the battle to be won, there isn't much for her to do. Phillips and Bopst give fine supporting performances. Hepburn gives Mike a certain lounge lizard appeal, and Matz is effectively curmudgeonly.
Direction by Ian Streicher doesn't seem to have brought much out of most of the actors, but he moves them around effectively. Ted Moniak and Max Johnson wrote some lovely incidental music, but much like the play, it seems to be the same piece over and over.

EMERGING ARTISTS THEATRE and Paul Adams, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR present the 2008 Fall EATfest, for a two-week limited engagement at Roy Arias Theatre Center, Off-Broadway Theatre (300 West 43rd St, 5th floor, NYC). Performances begin Tuesday, November 4, 2008, and run through Sunday, November 16, 2008.

EATfest plays the following regular schedule through Sunday, November 16, 2008:

Tuesdays at 7 pm - Series A
Wednesdays at 7 pm - Series A
Thursdays at 7 pm - Series B
Fridays at 7 pm - Series B
Saturdays at 1pm - Series C
Saturdays at 4:30 pm - Series B
Saturdays at 7:30 pm - Series A
Sundays at 1 pm - Series C
Sundays at 4:30 pm - Series A
Sundays at 7:30 pm - Series B

There is a performance of Series C, Monday, November 10th at 7pm.

Tickets are $18.00 and $10.00 with student ID/senior. For reservations, please visit www.eatheatre.org, or call 866-811-4111. Tickets may also be purchased in person half-hour prior to the performance at Roy Arias Theatre Center (300 West 43rd St, 5th floor). TDF accepted.

 

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