Four Play Feels Pretty Good @ The Go.Go
by Robert Barossi | Motif Magazine | Feb 3 - Feb 16, 2011
Sometimes inventive ideas come from the things you’d least expect. Take a pickle for example, just one of the five elements included in Elemental Theatre’s annual festival of short plays collectively titled Go.Go 5, directed by Alexander Platt. The collective gave Providence writers 6 short weeks to compose a play of any length for submission. Out of the 31 to take this challenge, four were chosen.
All plays had to include these five elements: a bone, a moment of intense light, something impor- tant going unheard, a mistaken identity, and of course, one glorious pickle.
Writer Rob Grace went straight for the jugular and skillfully used the pickle element for the title and setting of his play, The Pickle Shop, a brief but poignant play exploring the damaging effects that the American economy has on one’s identity. The main character, an immigrant woman, played by Casey Seymour-Kim, who calls herself “the crazy pickle lady,” is a perfect depiction of the free market’s slaughtering of the value of people.
Jill Blevins’ Wake is a short play about the surfacing of dark family secrets in response to their father’s death. It’s filled with intense, gripping moments that will engulf your attention and the characters are strongly built here. Ruth, the daughter and black sheep of the family is overflowing with anger and confusion as she gets bequeathed with nothing but her father’s ashes. The question is, why does she get the ashes and her brother gets a trust fund?
George Brant’s Baby Talk is a comedic story about the extremes a woman and her boyfriend are willing to go to attain perfection through their child. D’Arcy Dersham plays Lisa who’s married to Paul, played by Dave Rabinow and though their scenes are frantic and funny there are some honest moments where Lisa proclaims her disappointment in herself and in her spouse. In the end, this short play teaches a sweet lesson about how love sees past impecfections.
A Brief History of the Earth and Everything In It by Dave Rabinow is a hysterical, yet con- troversial, play where a third grade drama club puts on a musical that argues the case of creationism. Their aim is to undermine the Christian culture of the school. Though the topic of what they are singing about is potentially divisive, the characters and music in this play make it light-hearted, cre- ative and the acting is hilarious — especially since it is played by adults. A crowd favorite character is Turner, an adorable British lad, played by Seymour-Kim who so aptly embodies this funny tike’s quirky personality. And you don’t want to miss seeing Presley Turtledove, a pig-tailed, manatee obsessed, outrageously funny girl played by Kelly Seigh.
Though each of these plays have entirely different plots, they all touch on a universal truth that binds them together: the characters are on a quest to find their own identities.
D’Arcy Dersham of Elemental says this unplanned emergence of a theme happens every year. “Somehow people are always struggling with the same things. There are always areas of confluence.”
It’s interesting to see what emerges when you give a group of talented playwrights five elements to fashion a story with. “What we are exploring is the act of creativity,” Dersham says.
To see the work of these local playwrights’ imaginations is worth stepping out in the snow for.
www.MotifMagazine.net
The URL link to this article is no longer functional. We have reproduced the text of the article here. Any errors are the responsibility of Elemental Theatre.
Sometimes inventive ideas come from the things you’d least expect. Take a pickle for example, just one of the five elements included in Elemental Theatre’s annual festival of short plays collectively titled Go.Go 5, directed by Alexander Platt. The collective gave Providence writers 6 short weeks to compose a play of any length for submission. Out of the 31 to take this challenge, four were chosen.
All plays had to include these five elements: a bone, a moment of intense light, something impor- tant going unheard, a mistaken identity, and of course, one glorious pickle.
Writer Rob Grace went straight for the jugular and skillfully used the pickle element for the title and setting of his play, The Pickle Shop, a brief but poignant play exploring the damaging effects that the American economy has on one’s identity. The main character, an immigrant woman, played by Casey Seymour-Kim, who calls herself “the crazy pickle lady,” is a perfect depiction of the free market’s slaughtering of the value of people.
Jill Blevins’ Wake is a short play about the surfacing of dark family secrets in response to their father’s death. It’s filled with intense, gripping moments that will engulf your attention and the characters are strongly built here. Ruth, the daughter and black sheep of the family is overflowing with anger and confusion as she gets bequeathed with nothing but her father’s ashes. The question is, why does she get the ashes and her brother gets a trust fund?
George Brant’s Baby Talk is a comedic story about the extremes a woman and her boyfriend are willing to go to attain perfection through their child. D’Arcy Dersham plays Lisa who’s married to Paul, played by Dave Rabinow and though their scenes are frantic and funny there are some honest moments where Lisa proclaims her disappointment in herself and in her spouse. In the end, this short play teaches a sweet lesson about how love sees past impecfections.
A Brief History of the Earth and Everything In It by Dave Rabinow is a hysterical, yet con- troversial, play where a third grade drama club puts on a musical that argues the case of creationism. Their aim is to undermine the Christian culture of the school. Though the topic of what they are singing about is potentially divisive, the characters and music in this play make it light-hearted, cre- ative and the acting is hilarious — especially since it is played by adults. A crowd favorite character is Turner, an adorable British lad, played by Seymour-Kim who so aptly embodies this funny tike’s quirky personality. And you don’t want to miss seeing Presley Turtledove, a pig-tailed, manatee obsessed, outrageously funny girl played by Kelly Seigh.
Though each of these plays have entirely different plots, they all touch on a universal truth that binds them together: the characters are on a quest to find their own identities.
D’Arcy Dersham of Elemental says this unplanned emergence of a theme happens every year. “Somehow people are always struggling with the same things. There are always areas of confluence.”
It’s interesting to see what emerges when you give a group of talented playwrights five elements to fashion a story with. “What we are exploring is the act of creativity,” Dersham says.
To see the work of these local playwrights’ imaginations is worth stepping out in the snow for.
www.MotifMagazine.net
The URL link to this article is no longer functional. We have reproduced the text of the article here. Any errors are the responsibility of Elemental Theatre.
