The second half of St. Louis Actors’ Studio LaBute New Theater Festival finishes up this weekend. As is the tradition, it, like the first section earlier in July, opens with the short play that Neil LaBute offers each year. This year it’s Eric Dean White in The Fourth Reich, and you can read about it here.
The Gettier Problem, by Michael Long, was a problem for me, but maybe that’s because I worked in hospitals for so many years. It takes place in a psychiatric patient’s room, with a manipulative woman spitting out her medication. The woman’s discussion of what’s reality and what isn’t might be interesting if one hadn’t thought about it before, but basically it’s a scenario that, while realistic, seems without a point. Colleen Backer has a spot-on portrayal of the patient, Erin Brewer is the nurse mostly containing her impatience, and Spencer Sickmann a nurses aide who starts listening to the patient and is drawn in. But a note of authenticity needs to be attended to: One does not “check in” to a hospital. This is not the Ritz, or even Motel 6, where one presents oneself at the front desk, and says, “I want a room.” Even a voluntary psychiatric admission comes from an order from someone, probably a physician, who is on staff and has what’s called admitting privileges. And even if someone is rich enough to bypass insurance and pay for the hospitalization out of their own pocket, one “is admitted”. One does not check in. [End of rant.]
Peter McDonough’s The Process brings back Brewer, along with Carly Rosenbaum as two women in what at first seems to be an interview. It evolves slowly into something rather different, and quite political. Good performances from both actors in a script that could either use condensing or expanding into a full one-act.
And then there’s Unabridged, by Sean Abley. It’s in the absurdist style, and Zak Farmer and Spencer Sickmann are having an absolute romp with it. Farmer runs a dusty, moth-eaten storefront where the merchandise is words.
Words? Words? Yes. He sells words. The lack of accurate words in this society shows in the Sickmann character’s vocabulary – a really bad guy, he says, reaching, fumbling for a descriptor, is a “boat”. This may not appeal to everyone’s sense of humor but I found it hysterical and the two actors are an utter delight.
John Pierson directed The Fourth Reich, The Gettier Problem was directed by Wendy Renee Greenwood and Ryan Scott Foizey directed both The Process and Unabridged. Some interesting stuff here.
LaBute New Theater Festival Set Two
through July 29
St. Louis Actors’ Studio
Gaslight Theater
360 N. Boyle
314-458-2978
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