Cerebral one-acts showcase directing

At least once a semester, the Duke Players Lab Theater presents entirely student-produced and directed works. This weekend’s series of one-act plays promises hours of thought-provoking amusement, but beware of the heavy content in the selections that makes the evening exhausting for the audience to sit through.

“Action” by Sam Shepard opens with two men desperately trying to tune a radio—foreshadowing the lack of communication to come. “It’s hard to have a conversation,” Jeep, played by freshman Philip Wolfe, announces to an unresponsive group gathered for dinner. A sense of desolation envelopes the four characters, as their Christmas dinner is interrupted periodically with angry spasms, disjointed conversation and a dancing bear convincingly played by junior Ryan Morgan. In the end, it can only be left up to interpretation whether the characters will realize the purpose of their existence is more than simply regretting the past.

In the second play, John Patrick Shanley’s “A Lonely Impulse of Delight,” two friends wander into Central Park at 2:10 a.m. to ponder the wonders of love. Walter trusts his best friend Jim enough to risk being thought of as insane in order to show Jim the one love of his life: a “freshwater mermaid” who lives in Central Park Lake. Walter, played by senior Alex Perez, successfully portrays a man in love with the intangible. Despite minimal action, the actors hold a strong sense of suspense as the audience wonders whether or not love is meant to be shared.

In “The Red Coat,” also by Shanley, John, played by freshman Alex Warr, hopes his beloved Mary, senior Melodie Hunter, will pass by. John has apparently been waiting months to confess his love to Mary, and his breaking heart propels him to finally tell her. John says he first noticed her because of a red coat she was wearing one day.

The red coat is the one thing that connects them both, and the two lovers come to a deep understanding of each other within minutes. One of the more comprehensible plays in the set, Shanley’s drama raises the nagging question of “What if?”

“The Cure,” named after a T-shirt depicting the band, is the only student-written play of the set. In it, Adam Sapieri, Trinity ’03, also presents the problems resulting from lack of communication. Junior Alberto Mendoza makes a convincing Man, narrating the thoughts that go through a man’s head as his love goes apparently unrequited. It is a stale relationship; the Man and Woman, sophomore Alessa Colaianni, irritate each other on purpose and share neither breakfast nor love, only the breakfast table. The apparent oxymorons of their relationship make it anything but an ordinary overnight date, forcing the audience to wonder about the purpose behind their own actions in certain situations. Sapieri leaves the audience wondering: Is there a cure for a communication deficit?

“A Song at Twilight” by Noel Coward is the longest and perhaps most strenuous play of the set to endure. A nervous Hugo, played by senior Doug Mishkin, is scheduled to meet Carlotta, played by junior Amy Rosenthal, with whom he had a previous two-year affair. The foreign accents seemed a little forced, but the dialogue between Hugo and Hilde, sophomore Meredith Musselman, is very well performed, coming across as genuine arguments typical of a husband and wife of 20 years. The entire play hinges on Carlotta’s and Hugo’s past and its effects on their present lives. As a result, the entire play is one drawn-out argument. This makes for a very long time for the audience to hold its breath, waiting for the anger to dissipate.

While it is clear that the series of plays were run on a small-scale budget, the costumes and minimal props were creative and successful in portraying the settings. Overall, the blocking, directing and acting were superb and the entire crew is commended for their evident hard work. Sitting through both a Sam Shepard play and a Noel Coward play in one night, however, would be trying for even the most avid theater-goer. Instead of analyzing the content of the plays, save your energy to enjoy what is actually a rather impressive feat of student directing.