“You mean Superman’s gay?”
This idea and many others were explored this past Friday and Saturday night at the Cultural Arts Center in Greensboro as part of the Greensboro Playwrights’ Forum’s seventh annual “Evening of Short Plays.” This event gave local playwrights the opportunity to get their work produced by actors from the Greensboro area.
The scenes, “The Truth about Fantasy,” “A Super Thanksgiving,” “The Escape,” “The Perfect Gift,” “Ducklips,” “The Sound Called Music,” and “Wanda (Bleeping) Bennett,” explored interesting concepts from the playwrights, but overall the actors weren’t committed to their characters and didn’t develop a history outside of the slice of time shown to the audience.
“A Super Thanksgiving,” by David Ratcliffe, explored what would happen if Superman “came out” as Superman to his co-workers. Due to Clark Kent’s not quite super human ability to articulate what he’s saying, his co-workers think that he is trying to tell them he’s gay. The fourth scene, “The Perfect Gift,” by Mark Smith-Soto, explored the relationship between a mother and her grown son. The son is getting ready to leave the small town where he grew up to start his own life. The scene explores loyalty in an extremely dull way due to its repetitiveness.
“Ducklips,” by Jini Zlatniski, opens with a man and a woman waiting for the doctor in a gynecologist’s office. The premise – the man’s obvious discomfort in this setting, while the woman calmly and bluntly explains what each tool is used for – sets up for some interesting possibilities. The man accidentally breaks the speculum (the “ducklips” as the woman affectionately nicknames it), and the two hurriedly try to fix it or come up with a plausible excuse. The scene ends, of course, when the doctor enters before they have resolved what to do.
The last scene, “Wanda (Bleeping) Bennett” by Ann Marie Olivia, was a Martha Stewart satire. Depicting Wanda as a crazy homemaking diva, the scene takes place on New Year’s Eve at quarter to midnight. Wanda is seen setting up for a massive party to which only one guest shows up. At the end of the scene he serves Wanda with a subpoena for stock fraud and insider trading before leaving her to ring in the new year on her own. This piece’s obvious poke at Martha Stewart is not done artfully – there are better ways of doing social satire than merely recreating a current event under a different name.
The seven scenes were performed in a small rehearsal studio within the arts center to a very supportive local crowd. The stage was level with the audience, and though this created a cozy atmosphere, it was at times obstructive to the audience. The rehearsal studio was packed with a diverse group leaving standing room as the only the option for latecomers.
“An Evening of One Acts” was part of the Greensboro Fringe Festival. For more information on the Greensboro Playwrights’ Forum you can visit www.playwrightsforum.org.