THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 16, 1996 TAG: 9608150135
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Theater Review
SOURCE: Montague Gammon III
LENGTH: 74 lines
Regent University's A.C.T.S. Festival this summer has been demonstrating how well the school has developed the students' performing and producing talents. Last weekend, their playwriting skills were on display in a series of brief pieces called ``The Ten Minute Play Festival.''
The scripts generally were marked by believable dialogue, if not always by credible situations. It is far from easy to learn the skill of writing words that sound like people are really speaking them, rather than like they are being read from a narrative piece. If many of the scripts relied upon somewhat predictable ironies for their attempts at clever endings, or upon the extremes of outlandish characters for their plots, more subtle approaches to plotting will come with practice.
At the end of the performance the audience voted for the best script. ``The Encounter,'' by Catherine Segars, twice garnered the most votes and once ``Kiss My Grits,'' by Kendall Tuttle, got the prize.
Segars' script depicted an encounter on a subway car between a conventional young lawyer and an obnoxious, self-centered drifter who was trying to peddle health foods. The author didn't explain why the attorney didn't move to another seat in the empty car, but otherwise the work was relatively free of contrivance.
``Grits'' looked at a marital spat that arises at breakfast when a working couple takes their individual vacations simultaneously for the first time. Tuttle devised a charming and quite believably spontaneous display of affection that was the play's best moment.
The real plot of the short tale was a conflict over who gets the last Pop-Tart and the revelations each of the spouses has about his or her partner's quirky breakfast behavior. Basically the theme, couched in comic terms, was the adaptations that self-centered people must make to maintain the pleasures of shared living.
Another play about marital stress, called ``Dirty Laundry,'' becomes more and more impressive as it is considered in retrospect. Here too, a young couple comes into conflict, ostensibly over the wife's spending on clothing for a planned vacation. There is also an implication that the husband is not yet used to doing his fair share of chores, such as folding laundry.
In this case, there is no violently outspoken argument. Lisa, the young woman, voices and acts out her feelings of anger and anxiety and Stan tries to mollify her. This one-act play easily could become part of a longer show, perhaps a dramatic study of marriage.
Michelle Hoppe, who has figured largely in the conception and execution of the whole A.C.T.S. Festival, wrote ``Dirty Laundry.'' What distinguishes her script is the carefully planned suggestion of Stan and Lisa's situation, especially their indoor existence in a wintry Northern state. That bleak climate, Hoppe suggests, is behind Lisa's near breakdown.
Brian Haggerla wrote a piece called ``A Temporary Thing,'' about a young and cliche-ridden rich kid who has signed on for a job loading a dump truck. Like most of the plays, this is a two-character piece. Gavin is partnered with a taciturn and inconsistently hostile truck driver named Charlie.
``Of Spinal Cords and Other Obnoxious Occupations'' was written by Bruce Long, who played Gavin, apparently as a followup piece to ``A Temporary Thing.'' Gavin again appears, here to encounter an outrageous female chiropractor. Long also scripted ``The Fan-atics,'' in which two rabid fans of opposing college football teams discover at the moment of their greatest conflict that they are both born-again Christians.
Christianity also was the subject of ``Fish Guts,'' by Hunter Barnes, about a distraught would-be actor and of a satire of academia by Doug and Mattie Smith called ``Of Boxed Pigeons.''
The Ten Minute Play Festival was introduced as ``experimental theater.'' Once again the talent, promise and potential of Regent's drama students is noteworthy and actors, authors and producers can consider that their experiment was largely successful. MEMO: AT A GLANCE
WHAT: ``The Ten Minute Play Festival''
WHEN: A.C.T.S. Series runs weekends through August
WHERE: Regent University
INFO: 579-4245 by CNB