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ALIVE THEATRE’S LONG BEACH POPPIN’ PLAY FESTIVAL: SEGMENT 2

[AUTHOR’S IT’S-NOT-AN-EXCUSE-IT’S-AN EXPLANATION: Yes, the reviews of the three segments of Alive Theatre's Long Beach Poppin' Play Festival have been presented out of order, because I was not prepared to sit through 10 hours of theatre in a 24-hour time span. Doesn't matter how good the plays are—can't do it. If think you can, Alive's giving you a great chance to test that mettle, complete with a dinner deal at Bliss 562 across the street between Saturday's two segments. They'll tell you about that. I'm just gonna tell you about these here plays.]

Awake from This Noirmare by Shawn Kathryn Kane (Dir. Andrew Eiden)

Speaking of how good the plays are, this mare may be all noir—or at least a send-up of the genre—but it is nowhere near needing to be put out to pasture, despite what you might expect based on how often that particular genre has been spoofed.

Awake from This Noirmare was originally conceived as a serial whose three parts are dispersed throughout the evening. When I saw it, they decided to run the parts consecutively, broke by Robert Edward plugging the Bliss 562 deal in that goldenthroated ways he’s got. This worked delightfully, evoking the old-time radio serial.

It’s not, of course, the ads that made this little play a delight, but the play itself, Eric Pierce as Humph, a “private dick . . . to the core.” Humph often breaks into asides that everyone can hear, which doesn’t have to be funny but is, as is just about everything Pierce says in his macho noir voice.

Naturally, any piece of detective noir’s got to have dames, and Awake from This Noirmare has three: Bea (Lindsey Mackey), tall ice princess who contracts Humph to find out about her stolen catsup—and the corpse it rode in on; Flo (Cassie Vail Yeager), Bea’s heavily-Northeastern-accented airhead of a roommate; and Schmo (Kane), Flo’s seemingly more airheaded sister.

A drum-tight, funny script and idiosyncratic acting make these cutout characters and their clever-enough cornball humor work to perfection, and we float along for the airy ride, laughing all the while. Eiden (who makes the two syllables he utters funny) has got everything timed on a dime. The use of props is dead on. The set is both good-looking and functional, Hell, even the subtle lighting is noteworthy.

Don’t sleep on this Noirmare, babe.

 

Raised by Wolves by La Toya Morgan (Dir. Ricci Dedola)

Successful businessman Noah Reinhart (Thomas Amerman) brings his pregnant wife Dana (Stephanie Tucker) to his childhood home for Thanksgiving before the couple skip off to Paris in this comedy whose laughs are meant to come from the embarrassing, white-trash nature of the Reinharts—Noah’s crude, beer-guzzling father (Patrick Duzenbury), his pill-popping mom (Lisa Karen Cohen), and his parolee of a brother (Kyle Avise). The plot twists on surprise visitor Harold (Craig Johnson), who reveals that Noah may not have fallen as far from the family tree as he would like it to seem.

The comedy here is lightweight and predictable, and the timing is a bit off at times. Plus, for some reason, Dedola has the characters half-facing the audience as they speak to each other. The actors have a few moments (Cohen and Avise particularly), but there’s not a lot here.

Of course, humor—maybe more than most things—is all about taste. Mine is just different than the author’s. Beyond that, though, this one feels like workshop-level. But let’s not forget: that’s part of the idea of the entire fest.

 

Good Riddance by Ryan McClary (Dir. Tony Bartolone)

Because I was so gaga over his Entropy General (I saw the fucking thing twice), pretty much anything McClary could have done here risked getting short shrift. Is that why Good Riddance felt not quite locked in? Or is it that Good Riddance really is not quite locked in?

Whatever the case, McClary’s a good writer, and moments from this scenes-from-a-high-school-reunion+flashback soar. It’s not that there’s anything Earth-shattering in seeing soon-to-be-30-year-olds [what's with me and the hyphens today?] feeling “the crushing truth of hindsight” (great line, even if it may be uttered one too many times) or believing that “these ghosts [i.e., the(ir) past] never leave us.” Nor does the redux of types—the Jock, the Cheerleaders, the Nerd, the Outcast—rise far above retread.

What lifts Good Riddance above mediocrity is McClary’s prose. When he gets something right, he casts a spell. And when Murphy (Kevin Alai) walks Megan (Stephanie Tucker) through an unlikely, fateful moment from the night of their senior prom, you feel that particular frisson that comes with literary magic. It makes you think that eventually Good Riddance might really be something special.

As of now, it’s nice to see, in part because all of the actors give us something, and Bartolone has blocked and paced the proceedings with a good understanding of what will make this feel like more than going through the motions.

But it’s the glimpse of magic here that makes this a must-see. And maybe that’s exactly why you attend a new-plays fest such as Alive’s: to get that first insight into what may one day be great theatre.

LONG BEACH POPPIN’ PLAY FESTIVAL ALIVE THEATRE • THE DOME ROOM @ THE LAFAYETTE: 528 E BROADWAY AVE • LONG BEACH 90802 • 552.818.7364 ALIVETHEATRE.ORG • FRI 8PM, SAT 6PM & 9PM • $18; $15 FOR STUDENTS. GROUP AND MULTI-NIGHT PACKAGE DEALS AVAILABLE • THROUGH NOV 19