Summer One-Act Festival

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

Miner’s Alley Playhouse Second Annual Summer One-Act Festival inadvertently raises serious questions such as where does the idea come from that stupidity is funny?

It is no secret I am extraordinarily hard on what passes for comedy. With comedy, I want to laugh.

Such is the case with the two one-acts featured in Miner’s Alley Second Annual Summer One-Act Festival: Hidden In This Picture by Aaron Sorkin and directed by Joe Wilson; and The Guest Lecturer by A.R. Gurney, directed by Janet DeRuvo.

In Hidden In This Picture, John Lodico plays Robert, a film director ready for his last shot. He has been given millions, but now out of money. Rueben, his production manager, won’t let him forget. Pete Nelson authenticates the Rubenesque-production manager attitude. The film takes place in Guam as they film outside Schenectady, New York. Six hundred fifty-four stressed marines are to run down a hill. Robert takes a double take when three cows wonder into the shot. There are no cows in Guam. The supposed funniness revolves around how to justify cows. Robert’s lines speak of over confident zeal. Lodico tells a different story with a stiffness and not so confident speech. To underscore funny, Robert begs for loose as a goose posturing that Lodico struggles for but doesn’t deliver.

Kent Randell plays Jeff, Robert’s partner, and shows great promise. His body and expressions flow with his character.

Kelley Rae Rockey plays CJ, to whom Robert gives the grunt work of calling the shots. Rockey captures the nervous, sometimes forgetful, jumping through hoops CJ with ease.

What to do with the cows? That is the question. Consternation rolls around stage like a lost volleyball until Rueben comes up with a simple straightforward answer. Rather than being knock down roll on the floor hysterically funny, Hidden In The Picture is scary to think someone would bank roll an inept director even though it happens all of the time. That’s not funny.Expectations were high with Gurney’s The Guest Lecturer. After all, it is Gurney, a prolific playwright, but I would sure like to know what Gurney was doing when he wrote this one. Obnoxious is more like it.

A small theatre has reverted to bringing in boring guest lecturers. To counteract, a scheme has been devised to up the ante. The myth running around loose out of its cage is that the lecturers are murdered after their stint. Whether they actually are, or whether it is just a myth to rattle cages remains unknown.

Unsure, uncertain, Hartley is there to lecture on the direction of American Theatre. Besides being a nervous Nellie, Chris Bleau gives Hartley intellectual knowledge but certainly no speaker qualifications.

Facilitator, obnoxious Mona played by Jan Cleveland slyly lets rumors of the murders slip through her busy tongue, taking control, running the show and just being in the way. Why anyone would stay in the theatre with her annoying personality is beyond me. Obnoxious and annoying isn’t funny. If Mona is to be annoying and obnoxious than Cleveland nailed her to the wall. If Mona is to be a comic character, something is missing.

Raf Lopez sits at the keyboard as Pat underscoring various lines with bars of appropriate music. Wearing a silly grin on his face, he mingles so many extra bars into the music it is not always clear that what he plays actually has something to do with the lines.

Wade Livingston plays Fred a backstage bully whose primary focus seems to be to keep the guest lecturer from escaping the theatre with his life.

The point seems to be to bring out the utmost creativity in the lecturers.

Something just doesn’t click.

One scene branded on my mind I could but wish wasn’t. Harley in shorts smeared with catsup. I would much rather have been left pondering what cows could be other than cows.