NEW YORKThe annual, popular EST (Ensemble Studio Theater) Marathon is here, featuring for the first time the two-part series without the leadership of the recently deceased Curt Dempster. However, the marathon appears to be in good hands with EST's new director, William Carden.
In Series A, The News, a bittersweet comedy, features Karen (Geneva Carr), a cancer patient in hospital who's just been informed that the surgery she's about to undergo won't make the slightest difference to her (failing) condition. She's visited by friends, played by Diana Ruppe and Thomas Lyons, as well as husband George (Grant Shaud). George has brought a myriad of balloons to decorate her room as well as cheer Karen up, which for some reason brings about a shouting match between the couple. Though funny, even absurd on the surface, the play projects the underlying dread of impending death. Director Jamie Richards has brought out the complexities of the play, with a good set of actors at her disposal.
Though last on the bill, the most vivid of the evening is Neil LaBute's Things We Said Today, displaying a married couple at a restaurant. Pregnant wife Dana Delany "nails" her husband (Victor Slezak) with her discovery that he's been cheating on her with a close relative. Delany's seething rage is potent, with Slezak's lame excuses failing to make the slightest indent in the situation. The denouement is startling, to say the least. Delany and Slezak give terrific performances, under Andrew McCarthy's well-paced direction.
Bruce MacVittie delivers Wendy MacLeod's monologue, The Probabilities, about a man who specializes in the complexities of weather reporting. There's both humor and pain in MacVittie's unique delivery, as he describes tragedies wrought by weather, such as the Children's Blizzard of 1888. Nicely directed by Karen Kohlhaas, MacVittie has a way of finding the poignancy in almost any situation.
Director Kate Whoriskey brings out the poetic elements in Julia Cho's The First Tree in Antarctica, a lovely piece in which Sylvie (Michi Barall) recounts having mysterious dreams of Antarctica lately. Simultaneously a boy named Shawn (Jon Norman Schneider) has been trying to call her. There is ultimately a meeting of sorts, with the two actors sensitively bringing out Cho's intentions.
Edith Freni's My Dog Heart, is a too-cool depiction of a woman (Pepper Binkley) who must choose between a heart replacement of an iron organ that would function but prohibit her from feeling, and a dog heart that would have problems but would allow for emotions. The play, directed by John Gould Rubin, is, unfortunately, mostly of the iron component.
In Series B, Israel Horovitz's Beirut Rocks features four American students holed up in a Lebanon hotel awaiting evacuation to safety. Conflicts erupt between Benjy (Enver Fjokaj), a Bronx Jew, and Nasa (Stephanie Janssen), a Palestinian Arab raised in Massachusetts after her Gaza-based family was killed. The other couple, gentile Harvard student Jake (Frank Solorzano) and Stanford archeology major Sandy (Marin Ireland), try to keep peace, as rockets burst outside the hotel. In the startling denouement, Janssen's Nasa takes stage. An intense experience, under Jo Bonney's taut direction, with fine performances all around.
In Daniel Reitz's Self-Portrait in a Blue Room, noted painter Julian Barker (Larry Pine) waits somewhere in the White House to receive a presidentially awarded medal for his achievements. With him is his gay lover, the younger Chad (Chris Stack). The men discuss their relationship which, sadly, may not last much longer as Barker is ill. With excellent performances by the duo, the play is a clever as well as moving vehicle melding deeply held feelings against a political backdrop. Directed with depth and warmth by Pamela Berlin.
Peter Sagal's Milton Bradley, tests the ingenuity and patience of a rabbi (Stephen Singer) about to officiate at the funeral of Sophie Sapstein, whom he's never met. Although her son (Jason Schuchman) has nothing but bad to say about his deceased mom, the rabbi manages to bring about a triumph of public relations, if you will. Under Susan Einhorn's direction, the proceedings are both hilarious and thought-provoking, with Stephen Singer's shrewd and humane portrayal worthy of special mention.
What to do with too much money? Some problem, but it must be faced by newlyweds (Morgan Hallett and Michael Izquierdo) in Elizabeth Diggs' Priceless, in which the bride wants to spend her recently inherited $100,000 on luxuries, while her up-tight groom wants to safely invest the money. A light but pleasant bit of fluff.
In Amy Fox's Casting, teenager Haley's (Sutton Crawford) reveries are repeatedly interrupted by concerned mom Linda (Polly Adams) invading Haley's room. Also sometimes present are boyfriend Eddie (Noah Fleiss) and imaginary Latin lover, Ruben (Alfredo Narciso in a hilariously sexy tango turn). Slight but entertaining, especially when Ruben takes stage.
EST Marathon
Ensemble Studio Theater
549 West 52 Street
Tickets: (212) 247-4982
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Diana Barth writes and publishes New Millennium, a monthly arts newsletter.
