recap of Feb. 10: New Play Summit

This recap of the New Play Summit and 365 Days/365 Plays at the DCPA on Feb. 10 is long overdue.

True to what the DCPA customer service rep had said when I called, I was able to snag a ticket to the 10:00 a.m. reading of A Visitor's Guide to Arivaca (Map Not to Scale) by showing up a few minutes beforehand. Because I then had to move my car into the pay lot (why pay $8 if there was no guarantee of a ticket?), I entered the packed theater a few minutes after the reading had begun. I recognized a few actors I'd seen in 1001 and King Lear, including Jeanine Serralles and Markus Potter, and wondered how many rehearsals for this they'd been able to squeeze in amid their busy performance schedule.

I left the reading with mixed feelings about the play, which has already been workshopped in Tucson (American Theatre magazine's Dec. 2006 cover article covers it here). Having just finished The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle, the territory felt familiar yet more distant. Whereas Boyle's novel focuses sharply on the personal experiences of four people to illustrate the issues/problems of illegal immigration, Evangeline Ordaz's play seemed more didactic. She has placed at the center of her story one Mexican couple attempting to cross the border south of Tucson, with the supporting characters all receiving plenty of stage time as well. On the one hand, Ordaz gives voice to the many sides of the debate, and is generally even-handed about it, but on the other I came away from the reading feeling like I'd heard from archetypes more than from individual characters.

Regardless, it's always a pleasure to see and hear good actors at work. Despite what had to have been limited time to prepare, the performances were superb across the board. Special recognition should go to William Hahn, whose first entrance as Eddie the stoned ranch hand had his castmates laughing and enjoying his performance as much as the official audience did.

At noon, a group of DCTC actors performed one of the 365 Days/365 Plays in the Bonfils lobby. These plays are more like play-lets, or tiny versions of plays that may someday grow and develop. This noon offering seemed to be part of the recurring Father Comes Home from the War theme that Parks has described in some article I read somewhere. (By the way, I added a link to the More Sites I Like section of this blog that will take you to 'today's play' on the TCG website.) It was short, spare, and left me with more questions than I had before it started -- who was the man posing for the portrait with what seemed to be the Father's family? Why does the injured Father end the scene by dancing? Ah well, such is cutting edge work.

After my side trip to the library, I returned to the Bonfils lobby briefly, wondering if I wanted to stick around until 3:00 to see another of the 365 Plays. When I realized that the New Play Summit panel discussion already in progress was also free, my decision was made for me. I had thought the panel would feature playwrights whose plays were being read over the course of the weekend, but Evangeline Ordaz and Jason Grote were the only playwrights whose works were being performed. The rest of the panel was made up of Octavio Solis, Thomas Gibbons, and Julie Myatt. As moderated by Kent Thompson, the discussion was already well underway, and the prevailing theme seemed to be views on writing characters from a background different than one's own. Again, it's always interesting and edifying to hear more about process and motivation from those who've been doing it for a while.

The next two 365 Plays followed the end of the panel discussion in fairly quick succession, even catching a few patrons unaware as they tried to make their way down the steps and past the performers. The real excitement of the inclusion of 365 Plays into the New Play Summit, for me at least, was watching art being presented in a space not designed for that specific purpose. I like the idea that theater can happen any time, anywhere, with the audience standing around the sides and even behind the action. There is value in that, I think, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of the 365 performances through the year to see how they handle the challenges.