The Third Annual Festive One Act Play Festival at the Adrienne

Theater: Vagabond Acting Troupe, Second Stage at the Adrienne
Show: The Third Annual Festive One Act Play Festival
Opened: April 30,2008
Seen: April 30, 2008
Submitted: May 1, 2008
Reviewer: Florence Mickens

The Third Annual Festive One Act Play Festival is a chance to see an old medium from an unusual point of view. Aileen McCulloch, Executive Artistic Director for the Vagabond Acting Troupe, introduced the festival as a valentine to the many playwrights who regularly collaborate with the V.A.T. Offered at the smaller Second Stage at the Adrienne Theater, the festival presents five one act plays.

If your idea of theater is elaborate sets, velvet covered seating, and a swooshing curtain, this is not the place for you. The intimate setting of the 60-seat theater and the pace of the show give the audience an unusual glimpse at the inner workings of a stage show. The 5 pieces are stand alone and unrelated to one another calling for quick set changes with every new play. There’s no curtain, swooshing or otherwise, so the changes simply become another part of the theater experience. It’s interesting to watch the actors pitch in and transform the stage. The entire event has a sort of Do-It-Yourself feel to it which seemed in keeping with the grassroots, edgy personality of the Vagabond Acting Troupe.

Each work is a complete play, each story has its own tone and tenor ranging from Marcia Hepps’ quirky, almost inaccessible festival winner “Glossolalia” to the tongue-in-cheek send up of British stage comedies, “Setting the Scene” by Megan Mazaika. Over the course of the 5 plays we are treated to a large number of performers who are called to get into the moment NOW.

There’s not a lot of room to slowly reveal the depths of a character and his or her private motivations. It’s interesting to see them work in the limited timeframe to establish the characters and their relationships. While the quality varies, most of the actors are immediately believable in their roles and the performances work to introduce us to the playwright’s snapshot of the world.

The plays look at several different aspects of life including the nature of war, our shared social reality, the line, if any, between who we are and what we do for a living. While moving quickly from one “life” to another may sound a bit jarring or confusing, the festival producers have ordered the pieces in a way which flows easily.

There is almost a feeling of improvisation about the festival. It’s probably a combination of the scene jumping and the minimal staging that create this notion. It largely adds to a sense of watching truly fresh, original works being performed live. If you’re in the mood for something “completely different” or if you are a chronic channel surfer, the Third Annual Festive One Act Festival is for you.