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New Play Festival
2005 by UCSD Theatre and Dance  The latest Baldwin New Play Festival is wrapping up at UCSD,
with the talented actors and playwrights in UCSD’s venerated MFA program
creating a wide variety of new stories and some memorable characters.
Leading it off was the pinnacle of the festival, Tim J. Lord’s 11 Hills of San Francisco. Set in a small apartment in San Francisco during the late 1950s, a young poet lives a Bohemian life while searching for the muse that will inspire him to greatness. But does the poetry and fame mean more to him than the muses who inspire him? This eloquent, lyrical script boasts captivating characters and an ensemble worthy of them. Scott Drummond is Nick, the ambitious poet sucking the marrow out of life, but resisting true intimacy and love. Genevieve Hardison is the fragile, mysterious muse who can speak only in the verse of others, and who finds herself hopelessly obsessed with Nick. Brian Slaten is the confident, accomplished, cool cat poet who finds Nick and his work intriguing – on the verge of reaching a higher plane. Hilary Ward is Joan, the young woman knows what she wants – and that means happily sleeping with poets in exchange for glimpses into the future of the art. And Mark E. Smith shines in the show’s greatest role as Louis, a middle-aged English professor who is frustrated by the muse because of the talent he lacks, but adores those poets who have the talent, and to their often tragic lives and early deaths. He follows his former student Nick to the Bay Area, leaving his family for an opportunity to live near the fire of Nick, but finds only confusion, anger, and despair.Ruth McKee’s 500 Words explores what it means to be an American via an essay topic for a college scholarship. The three main characters are high school seniors who get a part-time job helping sort out the essays being submitted for the scholarship. Catherine (Keiana Richard) is a modest and intelligent African American from Canada whose mom is working in the America’s private school system. Yelena (Rebecca Kaasa) is an amusingly fidgety, flirty, and obnoxious teenager from Russia. Edgar (Owiso Odera) escaped to America from the political purges in Liberia where his family members were murdered. They find the essays being submitted to be trite and ingenuous, and decide to submit their owns based on their true stories and what they genuinely think it means to be an American. The writing and actors are amusingly realistic in their portrayal of three very different high school seniors and their social dynamics. And although the play needs a little more dramatic meat in the middle to drive the message home stronger, it’s ending is nicely written, with the three students getting a firsthand experience as to what some Americans think it means to be an American – following the letter of the law even when that law is wrong and innocent people will needlessly suffer for it. In the end, it's an indictment on that essay of what it means to be an American as written by our current government, which they entitled The Patriot Act.Citizens of Rome, written by Barry Levey, completes the full-length plays. He throws together a young Jewish man, his Chinese girlfriend from Germany, and her Palestinian friend who may be a lesbian into a T.G.I.Friday’s knock-off in England, along with the Jewish man’s gay brother who likes to adopt unfortunates. Both brothers live as they want thanks to checks from mommy and daddy, but their parents are showing up today to tell them that the family is now poor, and asking the sons to come home and help them build a new business. The story that comes from this contains humorous situations and dialogues, but it’s a bit uneven and scattered. The motivations for the characters and their personalities could be made more compelling if the play has a serious message about loyalty, responsibility, idealism, and multiculturalism to convey, which it seems to try to do in the much slower-paced second act. Otherwise, it might do well to simply continue the ridiculous, over-the-top silliness of the first act comedy.Performed through April 23, 2005.
Rob Hopper |