Extremely Short Play Festival: Short, Sweet and not so sweet. Festival lives up to its name.
Photo. Caroline Philips. John Koensgen’s New Theatre of Ottawa, has put on three short play festivals.
The third edition of The Extremely Short New Play Festival lives up to its name with at least one of the plays ringing in at around two minutes, the longest running maybe five times that, and the whole collection – 10 shows in all – clocking in at about 90 minutes including intermission.
The shows, some good, some not so much, are mostly by local or Canadian playwrights. Mary Ellis, Gabrielle Lazarovitz, Brad Long and John Muggleton handle all the acting, and New Theatre of Ottawa’s John Koensgen directs.
Israel’s Yohanan Kaldi has contributed two very short pieces about the soulless absurdity of institutions. In one, a prison warden (Long, too flip in the role) orders the extermination of fleas that a prisoner (Muggleton) has been training. In the other, a would-be library user (Long again, this time bang on) wreaks a tasty revenge on two control-freak librarians played by Lazarovitz and Ellis. Kaldi’s tiny, well-built plays zip by but leave an unexpected and disquieting echo.
Mikaela Asfour’s Rasha, about two young siblings and violence, comes and goes making little impression. Muggleton is menacing as the brother, but having Ellis, good as she is, play a young girl is ill-advised.
Much stronger is Buying Time by Alliston, Ont.-based Rosaleen Egan. In it, Ellis plays a suspicious shopkeeper and Lazarovitz a nervous neighbourhood mother with something to hide. It’s a fully realized short story, and Ellis is especially good as the bully behind the counter.
Also noteworthy: ILoveOrangesAndHateThePort by Sarah Waisvisz. A moving, sometimes lyrical, solo piece, it successfully conflates same-sex love, geo-political conflict, cultural traditions and personal betrayal. Lazarovitz shows us just how deeply Palestinian-Israeli or any other trans-national hatred can ravage those thousands of miles away.
A festival like this demands frequent set changes, so blocks and tables and chairs predominate. The latter identify the setting of Stephanie Turple’s comic A Couple Walks Into A Bar. The feuding couple is played by Long and Lazarovitz, while Muggleton is their surly server. There’s plenty amiss on this night out including a nearby toilet that flushes audibly and regularly. There’s mention of LRT construction beneath them, but the localization feels gratuitous. The play ends with a fizzle rather than a dazzle.
Jessica Anderson, a previous festival contributor, gives us the aptly named Submission. Featuring Long and Lazarovitz, it examines both the power structure within a couple and the woman’s struggle, as a playwright, to create a submission for a summer theatre festival. The show is brisk but – always a danger when a writer writes about his or her own craft – a tad self-indulgent.
The best piece by far is Blue Fluted Plain by Ottawa’s Adam Meisner. It finds Muggleton and Ellis, both in top form, as a couple attempting to restart their lives after a horrendous personal tragedy. Economical and honest, it speaks to how we struggle to survive the worst that can happen to us.
Pierre Brault’s fast-moving and funny Quartet rounds out the festival. It features all four actors as badly matched blind dates sitting at adjacent tables. Koensgen has done a nice job of orchestrating the intercut dialogue, the characters’ inappropriateness for each other, and Brault’s look at the disharmony of loneliness.
Continues until Nov. 30. Tickets: newtheatreottawa.com