Review: SATE Presents THE 8TH ANNUAL APHRA BEHN FESTIVAL at The Chapel

This weekend four playwrights presented new works as part of the Slightly Askew Theatre Ensemble’s (SATE) 8th Annual Aphra Bren Festival. The annual festival was created to produce the works of female playwrights. This year SATE expanded the festival to be more inclusive and accepted submissions from transgender and non-binary artists. The four short plays presented this year included THE THE by Anne Valentino, LEFT TO LOSE by Stella Plein, RUN RUN RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN... by Tessa Van Vlerah and Dylan Staudte, and THE CRONING by Margeau Steinau. Each of the works represented fresh voices employing avant-garde storytelling and nods to theatre of the absurd. 

Anne Valentino’s play THE THE stood out as tops among the 4 plays produced. It was creatively staged, expertly paced, and magnificently blocked by director Michelle Hand. Allie (Meghan Baker), a corporate marketer from a hotel chain was visiting a property to examine the plausibility of renaming the hotel. During her visit to the hotel, Allie visited with members of the hotel staff including the front desk clerk, the hotel manager, a housekeeper, and the hotel day care director all magnificently portrayed with brilliant comedic timing by the single named actor Keating. Not only did Keating fill all the roles, but the twist was that all the hotel staff were the same person. Baker was the perfect straight person to Keating’s nonsense and both elicited belly laughs from their work playing off of one another. The satirical absurdity of the script was wildly effective, and Valentino delivered a strong message of self-discovery. Playwright Anne Valentino 

Valentino’s play illustrated a maturity in storytelling with strong voice that provided a message that resonates. Hand, Baker, Keating, and David Cooperstein collaborated to create a memorable production. Hands vision to use a few small set pieces that were reset to create multiple offices and rooms, coupled with her effective sound designed worked to facilitate the protagonist's movement throughout the different floors of the hotel. THE THE was a twenty-minute masterclass on entertaining storytelling with a well-written one act play.  

Part dance party, part magic act, part absurd storytelling, Margeau Steinau’s THE CRONING, pays homage to Shakespeare’s The Weird Sisters in an absurdly fun way. Anna Rimar, Katie Puglisi, and Jody Stockton dance their way around their ‘cauldron’ exhibiting sibling rivalry, casting spells, and performing entertaining magic tricks. Director Abagail Greaser’s frenetic blocking played more like avant-garde choreography and created a dance club like atmosphere. This joyous nod to sisterhood was explosively entertaining and left an ethereal floating glitter hanging over the room, both literally and figuratively. Playwright Margeau Steinau

Tessa Van Vlerah and Dylan Staudte’s RUN RUN RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN ... is a farcical absurd comedy about the quintessential bad characters in stories who believe their villain status is because they’re misunderstood. RUN RUN RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN... works thanks to the fearless comedic performances of LaWanda Jackson and Andre Eslamian. Both threw themselves wholeheartedly into their characters with vocal and physical performances that drew hearty guffaws from the sold-out house. They were supported wonderfully by Sam Hayes as the third member of the trio, in a role that was written less for laughs and more to place a recognizable villain among the two nonsensical characters. Katie Leemon’s direction and collaboration with her actors milked every laugh out of Van Vlerah and Staudte’s screwball script.  

LEFT TO LOSE was written and directed by Clayton High School Student Stella Plein. Plein used high-school classmates Angela, Chen, Ivy Liao, and Daniel Lee to perform the staged reading of their script. According to the SATE website, Plein's sci-fi inspired script discusses denial, lingering and longing. The real benefit of a short play festival is the opportunity to learn and grow. LEFT TO LOSE left the audience a little lost because of some clear directorial misses. The actor's participating in the stage reading could have used direction in pacing and articulation. The production lacked a strong sound design, leaving Plein’s scripted words unheard and floating in space.  Playwright and Director Stella Plein

The entire cast closed the festival with readings of original teacup poems by writers in the Prision Performing Arts’ Spoken Word class at the Women’s Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center. The entertaining 8th Annual Aphra Bren Festival successfully gave fresh female, transgender, and non-binary voices the medium to have their works professionally produced and be heard.