The Baltimore Playwrights Festival packaged scenes from six plays and presented them in the Kennedy Center’s South Atrium Foyer, a medium-sized room on the second floor. Maryland Theatre Guide has already reviewed three of these plays, and you can find links to those articles below. The other three are described here.
Asking Questions
Written by Nancy Murray
Presented by Fells Point Corner Theatre (Baltimore)
Sometimes uncovering a misdeed, whether it be a lie or something more violent, is more than just who done it and why. Sometimes the most important thing is its impact upon others. Asking Questions is about a teenage girl, her absent father, and why her mother lied about his death. In the scene performed at Kennedy Center, Mandy confronts her mom, Meg. It seems that mom has told Mandy and her brother for years that dad was dead, and he wasn’t. Mandy bitterly accuses her: “I could have had a father. But you destroyed all the evidence.” Such passion and anger, but why? Mom has good reasons, but this play is looking beyond why someone isn’t honest with someone else. Agatha Christie she’s not; Nancy Murray does not uncover the blameworthy and their motives, just for truth’s sake. Asking Questions explores meaning in an emotional sense. Specifically, it’s about understanding what one’s deeds mean to those affected by them.
Self, Inc.
Written by J-F Bibeau
Presented by Theatrical Mining Company (Baltimore)
It’s almost as if Dickens were turned on his head and raised a dimension. At least in terms of his Ghost of the Future. J-F Bibeau casts the future in the role of personal double, five months hence. Francis Elfman, accountant at Total Refuse, Inc., makes a time machine that produces himself shortly to be. The excerpt performed for us shows Francis now and Francis future discussing their past. The twist from Dickens is that the future Elfman does not seem to be the guy in control. He’s more like a neurotic Woody Allen on the lamb in Sleeper. Afraid of what Francis now might do if left to his own devices, Francis future tells him, “If I stick with you, I feel safe.” Knowing his power, Francis now plays with it, wondering aloud what would happen if he made three Francises, or more, and relishing his future self’s OMG response. It’s Dickens gone from dour to daft. As Emeril Lagasse says, “Let’s kick it up a notch.”
Web of Deceit
Written by Colin Riley
Presented by Red Branch Theatre Company (Columbia, MD)
The Patty Duke Show was a 1960’s television comedy about two teenage cousins who looked exactly alike, but had very different personalities. Colin Riley’s Web of Deceit is a little like that. Dressed in Marcel Marceau-style costumes and makeup, Mia and Keysha are best friends locked in a Sartrean room. They may look the same (well, related at least), but they think different. And this is because there is a third character, Keysha’s laptop, A.K.A. the Internet. Keysha’s knowledge and interpretation of life as we know it is gained pretty much by means of the big I, with Mia making reality updates when she climbs a stepladder to look out the window. As Mia restlessly moves about, she poses the profound questions and Keysha returns the answers supplied by her computer oracle. Mia mentions the word friend, and Keysha reads her the definition. “Friend: A person outside of the Internet with whom one shares serious interactions.” Mia wants to leave the room, with Keysha, for that beautiful world outside the Internet. Keysha remains glued to her computer screen, refusing to even consider a real-world shopping trip until Mia takes the power cord hostage and threatens to throw it out. While Mia holds the tangled cord above Keysha and reminds her of the laptop’s limited battery life, Keysha wails, “All my friends will disappear.” Mia counters with, “Our reality filtered through a computer screen? There’s no hope for us.”
“When will we die?” Mia asks. Keysha replies, “We’ll live on through our blogs, our photos, our emails.” And then she adds, “I just Giggled you. More than 500 thousand hits.”
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The Sculptress
Written by Marilyn Millstone
Presented by Fells Point Corner Theatre
Reviewed by ZSun-nee Matema on MD Theatre Guide
Unraveled on the Gravel: A New Musical
Music, Lyrics & Book by Kevin Kostic
Presented by Spotlighter’s Theatre
Reviewed on Maryland Theatre Guide by Graham Pilato
Zulu Fits
Written by Alonzo D. LaMont, Jr
Presented by MAAT Production Association of Afrikan Centered Theatre
Reviewed by ZSun-nee Matema on MD Theatre Guide
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Baltimore Playwrights Festival website.
