Flying on one wing
Flyers And Other Tales
By Kate Marks
Directed by Heidi Handelsman
Midtown International Theatre Festival/WorkShop Jewel Box
Equity showcase (closed)
Review by Charles Battersby
Flyers and other
Tales is a trilogy of short
plays, all written by Kate Marks,
and collectively offering "A peek at what it's like to be invisible."
“Invisible” being a metaphor for the annoying people who are tuned out and
ignored by the majority of the public.
The first play is Buried, which is about three subway performers in
search of an audience. One of them is Roy (Cory
Gibson), a poet, who's also a doomsday prophet and 9/11 survivor. He meets
Kit (Maria Squerciati), a young
woman not entirely sure what her act is (though it involves flaming hula hoops
and knives). They are joined by Rhett (Mark
Light-Orr), whom many New Yorkers can readily identify as that guy in the
Times Square station who does the salsa with a life-sized doll (Rita, his
dancing doll, was played by Alison Saltz).
The three debate the artistry of what they do, with Kit being uncertain, Rhett
arrogantly confident, and Roy confused yet hopeful. There's lot's of dialog
that could be played either sarcastically or straight, so, ultimately, it isn't
clear what Marks’s opinion on the subject is.
Those aggressively religious folk come next in Marks’s second play, Converting
Numbers. Three people are waiting on line to get into a public bathroom,
when one of them starts talking about religion because “People standing in
bathroom lines are less likely to walk away.” Again, it's not entirely clear
what Marks's take on religion is, since she creates her own religions for the
skit. Eventually another religious group shows up, espousing the virtues of the
"Process of Elimination" and the scene shifts away from the show's
motif of "Invisible" people, and veers into the surreal.
Finally Marks addresses those annoying people who hand out flyers on the
street, with Flyers. This one almost immediately lurches into the
surreal as the flyer distributors (Julia
Davis and Marc Santa Maria) are
revealed to be ghosts, or trees, or ... something.
Whatever one might
think of surrealistic playwriting, the design for Flyers and Other Tales
was certainly effective. The upstage wall was mostly taken up by a screen, with
lighting behind it, which allowed the shadows of offstage actors to interact
with the players onstage (set designed by Heather
Cohn). This trick was used in all three scenes, and helped establish
continuity for the whole show. Sound (Greg
Duffin) seemed to be authentic subway sound effects, with actually subway
guitarists singing faintly in the background.
Performances varied drastically, though Marc Santa Maria was notable in the final scene as a charismatic flyer guy who screamed "PAZAM!!!" every time he handed out a flyer. Mark Light-Orr stole the first two scenes, especially as the outrageously Latin Rhett. Cory Gibson, on the other hand, had the unfortunate tendency to laugh at his own lines in the first two scenes.
The obnoxious people whose lives are chronicled by this show are rightfully ignored by the rest of society, and Flyers and Other Tales makes the mistake of trying to look too deeply into their souls.
Writing: 1
Directing: 1
Acting: 1
Set: 2
Costumes: 1
Lighting/Sound: 2
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Copyright 2005 Charles Battersby