The festival got off to a fast break with Ken Weitzman’s Spin Moves – a disturbing tale set in 1996 about a Bosnian mother and daughter recently escaped to America from the horrors of the Serbian invasion, and understandably terrified of men. The teenage daughter Maja (Katherine Sigismund) has a love of basketball and a dream of playing professionally, but her dreams lead her into an initially reluctant relationship with the all-girl school’s new male basketball coach (Alex Cranmer). A basketball coach who deeply cares about Maja, but who is battling his own inner demons that leave him dangerously obsessed with his new student.

Weitzman, who earned a San Diego Playbill Award for last year’s Arrangements, has a gift for developing deeply layered characters that feel real, and weaving them into stories filled with a good balance of humor and tension, with plots that grab you and don’t let go. He is partnered again with fellow San Diego Playbill Award-winner, Director Suzanne Agins, who seems to have such a terrific feel for how to bring Weitzman’s scripts to the stage.

Her talented team of five actors (the same number as are on a basketball team, coincidentally or not) are led by Katherine Sigismund as Maja who slowly transforms from a nervous and shy girl to a young woman who has a lot more on her mind than just basketball. Arrangements star Makela Spielman is her overprotective mother (or perhaps not overprotective after all) who tries to frighten away male visitors with a make-believe dog, is relieved and downright encouraging when it looks like her daughter may be a lesbian, and who saved her daughter from danger once – and will stop at nothing to save her again. Alex Cranmer is unsettling as the girls’ basketball coach struggling with his deep yearnings. With incredible flair for the most subtle nuances, Garrett Neergaard delivers a brilliant and often humorous portrayal of wheelchair-bound school reporter William who awkwardly tries to win the trust and affection of Maja, but who at the same time finds himself the only witness to the coach’s more-than-pedagogical interest in his pupil. And delivering basketfuls of laughs is the hilarious Ashley Drummond as the beautiful, vain, and ditzy captain of the team who loves to flaunt herself to the guys, yet isn’t, like, totally disappointed with having to “pretend” to be Maja’s lesbian lover, either!

Next up is Rachel Axler’s Archaeology, an insightful and creatively witty story of a 29-year-old woman who wakes up one morning to find her home has been turned on end by a powerful earthquake that, rather suspiciously, affected only her house. She is going to have to dig deep, both literally and spiritually, to find the source of her fractured foundation. Which is just fine for her, as she always did want to be an archaeologist when she grew up!

Reminiscent of Axler’s fanciful one-act The Disappearance Conundrum from last year’s festival, both plays focus on a thirty-something woman who finds her house to be the center of an inexplicable, supernatural occurrence, their home becoming a physical manifestation of what is truly wrong in their lives. It works to fantastic effect, having the place that one would believe to be the most predictable and controllable place in their lives turned into the enigmatic source of their mystery. And so it is in their home that they try to understand the source of the mystery, which is not just some freak fault line. To find the ultimate cause, they have to dig deep within themselves – and in this case deep underneath the house – where the puzzle to the mystery will be slowly revealed.

Under the direction of the gifted Bill Fennelly, the cast dives into their intriguing roles, which include some most interesting and helpful neighbors. Amy Stewart is the closet archaeologist (or, more accurately, the basement archaeologist) named Pell (perhaps short for “pell-mell,” indicative of her confused and mixed-up state) who sees the catastrophe to her home as an opportunity, and enthusiastically lights into the work of digging beneath the house to find the source. Although she might not like what she uncovers. Corey Brill is Astin, the man she has lived with in an ambiguous, platonic relationship for the last ten years of her life, who has a brilliant and inventive mind, but who lately seems satisfied with creating cartoon corn robots. On the morning of the earthquake, these two are joined by the most unlikely group of volunteers who are extremely eager to help. Carmen Gill is a riot as Imogen, the “psychiatrist” wrapped in an unusually sexy, low-cut lab coat, who has an instinctive flair for puns that everybody “gets” except her. Soon after her arrival, Red Cross emergency supplies arrive, carted in by Jon and John (Geno Monteiro and Eric Evenskaas) via fuel-efficient Radio Flyer red wagons. While Jon flirts with the flirty psychiatrist, John (with an “h”) helps Astin work on his true project (which has nothing to do with corn) and assists him in understanding his own desires a little better, while Imogen befriends Pell and assists her in trying to put together the puzzle that lies at the root of Pell’s problems.

Melpomene Katakalos’s inventive set includes a miniature house on a stick that lights up and slants at an angle as time and tremors dictate, several small sandboxes in the floor where the digging takes place, as well as a human-like frame used by Imogen and Pell as they begin to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

Then it’s off to the circus with Ladybird Wittgenstein (Lisa Velten) and Chris (Adam Smith) – a Bonnie & Clyde-like pair who have their hilarious meeting in the gutter (literally) and decide to make their lives extraordinary by heading off on a romantic crime spree before lying low as carnies in a ragtag circus. This is a kinder and gentler Bonnie & Clyde, to be sure. They’re not quite so quick to kill their victims – just rob them. And they do so in Ladybird’s exotically amusing costumes (courtesy of Costume Designer Emily Pepper) that the talented Ladybird creates special for each “job.” Their colorful crimes catch all the headlines, and they become cult icons with a gaggle of young Ladybird & Chris wannabes copycatting their adventures.

Jeff Hirsch’s Desperados in Dreamland starts off as a wild and amusing romp until the two desperados take cover in the Dreamland circus, at which time it looks more seriously at the relationship between Ladybird and Chris (do they really have an enduring love for each other, or was it more of a fling kept together by the bonds of their thrilling string of holdups?). The comparatively slow second act still has the laughs, but flounders a bit for a compelling storyline, complicated by the fact that, although the characters are interesting and outrageous, there just seems to be so little we know about them that it is hard to really care. But fortunately we do slowly begin to learn about Ladybird, whom the story is truly about, and whose personality is more than one-dimensional, having an intriguing blend of unlimited kindness and a just-do-what-I-say-or-I’ll-kill-you edge to her.

Though Lisa Velten has the meatiest role and makes the most of it, the other characters all have terrific flair for Hirsch’s sense of humor and the quirky characters they play. As Chris, Adam Smith has the humor going and gets to dig a little deeper as he becomes torn between doing what he wants to do and living up to his newfound fame. The cast includes the best character names, including Carlotta Farlotta (Elia N. Cubillas-Saldana) who is one of the rough, enthusiastic young wannabes who meets her idols and wants to inspire Chris to new heights of greatness. Lila Lamamoor (Antonia Grace Glenn) is the voluptuous bearded lady who wants to inspire Ladybird to hang around the circus, as does the quiet, modest, nice-guy, singing cowboy Buckshot Surreal (Andrew Smith) who writes the most horrible lyrics, but they’re straight from the heart. Then you’ve got his polar opposite in delightfully disgusting sleaziness with the Dreamland Announcer (Bradley Fleischer) who’s yet another one that’s got the hots for Ladybird. And then there’s my favorite device, David Jimenez as the mugger who puts all these events into motion with his bungled mugging of Ladybird, and then keeps bumping into her in various roles including a convenience store clerk and a monk, as he keeps taking to heart Ladybird’s furiously given advice to change his life for the better – advice that Ladybird will have to take to heart as well if she wants to have a happy ending.

Mat Smart’s beautifully written Hand, Foot, Arm, and Face rounds out the full-length plays with this most recent update to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, this one set two months after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 and featuring a young Iraqi Romeo dating an American Juliet against the wishes of her prejudiced mother who can’t separate the attacks from Muslims in general. The theme and elements of Romeo and Juliet and current social tensions and emotions are interwoven with the exquisite touch of a master writer who uses tenderly created characters, splendid dialogue, and action that can say so much more than any words can, combined into a story that should, and hopefully will, be seen on many other stages in America and elsewhere.

Fortunately the play had a director and group of actors with the enormous talent and the passion to bring out its beauty. Meredith McDonough, following up on her ambitious production of Angels in America: Millennium Approaches, here delivers a much more intimate and equally powerful production with her remarkable corps of young actors. Christine Albright stars as J (Juliet) with Jose Chavarry as Rami (Romeo) – both being names that J comes up with to conceal their true identities as they try to make their getaway to Canada. Their chemistry is apparent throughout, whether they are being blissfully lovey-dovey, getting on each other’s nerves after spending days stuck with just one another, and especially in a captivating “foot washing” scene in which Rami lovingly relaxes his exhausted, “unofficial” wife by gently cleaning her embarrassingly calloused feet.

Colette Beauvais somehow evokes equal emotions of disgust, sympathy, and amusement as J’s prejudiced, lonely, frightened, and talkative widowed mother, Mrs. Clement (Capulet). J’s mom has mind-boggling breath control, the ability to talk a million-and-one words a minute, and a mind that can almost travel at the same speed – the latter factor causing a great deal of harm, as her often thoughtless and bigoted words that cause so much pain might be prevented if she was able to think quick enough to stop them. As it is, Mrs. Clement’s ambivalence toward her daughter’s relationship with her Iraqi boyfriend drives them away, literally, in an effort to get to “a place that is nowhere.” Namely, Canada.

But lack of funds and a bum car lead to an unexpected layover in Indiana where they get jobs with the idea that they would continue as soon as they had the cash. They wind up being neighbors to a single father, an African-American man named Tyrone (Owiso Odera), and his teenage daughter named Mitchell (Simone Moore). Yes, a girl named “Mitchell.” But what’s in a name, for a name is not hand, foot, arm, or face, and a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, as Mitchell learns while rehearsing for her school play in which she will play the doomed Tybalt in a production of Romeo and Juliet, a play that she decides she doesn’t like because everyone dies in the end.

It’s not clear whether Tyrone is a bad man who abuses his daughter, or whether that’s just one of many stories made up by the fickle and creative Mitchell, an ambiguity that Owiso and Simone portray perfectly with their body language and eyes. But such ambiguity leads to a dangerous tension that rises when Mrs. Clement locates J and Rami in Indiana and the climactic ending nears. Mitchell’s agonized and terrified words, words from her stage rival Mercutio, which she repeats over and over again, still echo in my mind: “A plague on both your houses. They have made worms’ meat of me.”

The message is more than just a curse by a dying man on the warring Montagues and Capulets. It’s a warning that as long as hatred rages between people, whether two families or two nations or two religions or two ideologies, both houses will suffer their share of death and loss. A message so artfully and painfully presented on this stage.

The Festival ended with first year playwright Barry Levey’s one-act Critical Darling, a touching, humorous, and exceptional script that unfolds immaculately, drawing us into a story concerning homosexuality when “homosexuality” was a new and relatively unknown term. Set in a small New Mexico town at the dawn of World War II and while Jews and homosexuals were being taken to Nazi concentration camps, British germophobe “Banana Baron” Frank Willis (Jim Winker) proposes to his ex-wife’s sister and really bad poet, Evie Standpoor (Eva Barnes). But through a few subtle clues, it becomes very clear early on that this is somewhat a marriage of convenience, and that Frank is incapable of feeling any physical attraction to Evie – a fact which Evie regretfully accepts, knowing that Frank is fighting that nameless sexual desire that must be suppressed.

But not everyone is so eager to suppress their desires. Like the eccentric and contentedly unscrupulous Gerald Headly (David Ari) who does as he likes, as often as he can, regardless of how it might tarnish his reputation. Of course, he never really had a reputation to begin with, and whatever reputation he might have had, a little more tarnishing of it would likely go unnoticed. As Frank and Evie’s lazy, sponging, philosophizing, libidinous friend, David Ari is a hoot throughout and the source of the show’s comedic side – including his hysterical method of meditating with the help of an unidentified powdery supplement.

And finally there’s Daniel (Brian Slaten), the young and openly gay Jewish composer whom Evie wants to hire to put music to her poetry, but who knows Frank from an encounter in a men’s restroom two weeks before. Daniel hates Evie’s poetry (as does everyone else), but he loves Frank (who writes incredible poetry, although only in secret), and Daniel will only accept the job if Frank will have an open relationship with him.

Except for a few uses of modern lingo that tend to break the spell of the 1939 setting, Critical Darling is a masterfully written, sensitive, and compelling play that brings to light an important period of time when the idea of homosexuality as a concept was just forming. But mainly it’s a play about people who have to choose between their reputations and happiness – and how their choices affect the lives of others. A choice that so many people still have to make today.