Thicker Than Water 2008

I see a lot of one-act festivals as part of my work with New Theater Corps -- I find that they're a great way to catch up-and-coming artists, to see boundaries being pushed in experimental short pieces, or simply to showcase artistic and directorial talents. So I'm disappointed with the output of the under-35 Youngblood group, which, if Thicker Than Water 2008 is any indication, is happier treading water, getting their feet wet, and playing in the kiddie pool, than diving into anything serious (or funny). At best, the seven plays here put the cute in dysfuncutetion (as with Amy Herzog's 508); at worst, they sing -- badly (Delaney Britt Brewer's hippie folk musical about familial reconciliation It'll Soon Be Here).

The two exceptions are Courtney Brooke Lauria and Matt Schatz's musical, Co-Op, which is at quirky enough musically to get away with a stale tale of shy strangers, and Justin Deabler's excellent Red, Blue, and Purple, which dares the audience to watch as Dylan (Miguel Govea) meets for an uncomfortably revealing coffee with his former best friend, Nina (Kelli Lynn Harrison), whose shaky mental condition and conversion to religion -- "I Heard God speaking to me at the hot buffet -- are all just a bit too much for him, especially when she tries to help him switch back to heterosexuality.

The directing is efficiently done, but that's the last thing you want to hear in a review focusing on new one-act plays. It's also not enough, as the actors so often fall back on overemoting when they run out of things to actually say. Michael Sendrow's For Candy: A Dead Letter Written has an interesting concept -- a son gets a long-lost (and forgotten) letter from his now-dead mother -- but the suspense is literally throttled to death by the father's (Grant Shaud) patented Looks of Portent. Daria Polatin's La Fete (The Holiday) is full of caustic snaps from a teenage daughter dragged along on her mother and stepfather's honeymoon, only to settle for a hastily resolved happy ending. And while I'd love to say that Thicker Than Water simply suffers from not having enough time, Emily Chadick Weiss's Both wastes the entire 50-minute second act cracking similarly embarrassing jokes until they're neither embarrassing nor funny.

I've seen great stuff from Youngblood artists before, so maybe this is just their way of getting it out of their system, pissing, if you will, into a wide ocean of thick, middling water. But hey, would it be too much to ask for some waves?

PLAY: An Octopus Love Story

Photo/Mike Klar

Delaney Britt Brewer's new play, An Octopus Love Story, is like the difference between good sushi and bad. The good moments--which far outnumber the bad--are filled with witty characters and comic situations (the guy who hits on his co-worker only to find out she's a lesbian), and great new descriptions for depression: "This city is so sharp, sometimes I feel like I'm slashing my wrists just to hail a cab." The bad moments are just a result of straining the suction cups of the story until they cannot help but slip up. The titular anecdote about a lovestruck octopus is charming, but makes the play too much of an anti-Little Mermaid, just like Brian Sidney Bembridge's fish-tank of a set, which might work if it weren't sunk in metaphor (there's also the "people who live in glass houses" parable). On their own, the text and scenes are fine, albeit a little melodramatic, and the cast goes a long way toward keeping the focus on Brewer's language, rather than her metaphor.

After an excisable although enjoyable opening scene that introduces us to the closeted lesbian, Jane (to the chagrin of her co-worker, Marc [Eric Kuehnemann]), the play gets to the point as Tosh, Jane's live-in lover (and publicist) convinces her to marry Danny (Josh Tyson), a gay man, as a way of protesting marriage. What's interesting here, and where that fishy metaphor comes back to haunt us, is that Jane and Danny actually fall in love: Jane, as likable as she is neurotic, and Danny, a sweet, charming, Rock Hudson-quoting gentleman. Brewer gives us both sides of the story first when Mr. Gardner (a perfectly unsettling Andrew Dawson) shows up to interview them for what he calls a "mom and pop" magazine, but which is actually a subversive right-wing attack on their campaign, and then later when Danny's best friend, Alex (Michael Cyril Creighton) tries to win him back. So can you change who you are? Should you? Are we even what we say we are, think we are, actually are?

It's fitting that the scene changes are accompanied by light lounge music, because that's more or less how these questions are addressed--lightly. It's also why the plot slips further and further as the play continues. It isn't necessary for Tosh to have an affair to make Danny and Jane connect: they're already getting married. It does, however, make for a tearful bit of karaoke courtesy of Sir Elton John. It's obvious that Alex loves Danny from the subtler first act: the long monologue about a long-past bicycling accident just lets Creighton play a drunk. The one subplot that works is Jane's confession to her mother-in-law, Kathy, that she is lesbian, and it's a moment carried entirely by Krista Sutton, who makes more out Kathy than just a kooky Texan.

An Octopus Love Story may not be raw enough to make for good sushi: some of the characters are too thinly cut to seem attached, and the disconnected set and over-garnished subplots hold the show back. But the texture of a good play about gender identity--and more importantly, the taste of a rising playwright still establishing her style--makes this show worth sampling.