Things My Afro Taught Me, a one-woman piece, written and performed by Nancy Giles, starts off with her feelings about her not-smooth hair and her various ways of dealing with it: lotions—some of which can cause hair loss, straightening techniques, and so on. Her relationship with a white female boss for whom Nancy does voice-overs for a women’s television channel comes to a bad end.
The critical boss, whom Nancy refers to as Satan, drives her up the wall. Giles cleverly displays her changing attitudes toward her hair, bringing in comments about the Civil Rights Movement along the way, and finally decides to “lighten up” in her viewpoints. It is a nice, well-performed piece, both light and pithy.
In John Augustine’s Death By Chocolate, the recently widowed, middle-class Sheila (Sherry Anderson) is besieged with problems. She is trying to contact her disturbed twin sister who’s ensconced in a mental institution in the Midwest. She’s also fending off her overly solicitous sister-in-law, Janet (Mary Joy), who really wants Sheila to put her upscale Bucks County home on the market so that Janet can reap a nice commission.
Wandering in and out of Sheila’s home and life are various oddballs, including a servant named Shambhala, a florist, and others (all skillfully played by Aaron Paternoster).
Direction by Robert Saxner did not do justice to the play’s zany twists; some of the staging was inadequate, the pacing too slow, and the set for Death By Chocolate, designed by Maruti Evans consisting mostly of several black-painted doors, looked a bit tacky. (Evans’s minimalist sets for the other plays were acceptable.) The excellent performers deserved better support.
Neil LaBute’s A Second of Pleasure is arguably the most professionally written and performed of the series. Jess (Margaret Colin) has a prearranged meeting with Kurt (Victor Slezak) under the famed clock at Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan.
They are both married—but not to each other. They had planned an out-of-town weekend together, but gradually Jess insinuates that their continued affair may not be what she really wants. It’s a subtle cat-and-mouse game until the final, somewhat ambiguous, decision.
Colin and Slezak give top-drawer performances under Andrew McCarthy’s smooth direction.
The evening’s final offering is a small-scale opera. An ambitious effort for this type of presentation, The Eternal Anniversary, with music and lyrics by Skip Kennon and book by Bill Connington, is pleasing and effective. Tom (Robert W. Dusold), an expert hotel chef in 1913 New York City, has made a lovely meal for the wedding anniversary of himself and wife Sarah (Leenya Rideout).
Although very much in love with Sarah, Tom has long suspected that she was unfaithful to him years ago. A chance discovery that evening proves the contrary. But there is an unexpected “clicker” when the audience discovers the couple’s actual and peculiar situation. A very charming and poignant production directed by Thomas Caruso.
Altogether, a pleasant evening.
Series B features one-acts by Carole Real, Keith Reddin, Roger Hedden, and William Inge, and alternates with Series A.
Summer Shorts 3: Festival of New American Short Plays
Series A
59E59 Theaters
59 East 59th Street
Tickets: 212-279-4200 or www.ticketcentral.com
Running time: 2 hours
Closes: August 25
Diana Barth writes and publishes New Millennium, an arts newsletter. She also contributes reviews to TotalTheater.com.
