Anyone For A Swingin' Threesome?
nytheatre.com review by Martin Denton
December 13, 2010
Just ASK Productions' evening of one-acts, Anyone for a Swingin' Threesome?, is the third in their annual series of anthologies of new short works. I'm not exactly sure what makes these three plays "swingin'," but I am sure that they come together as a fun and generally cohesive evening, featuring some novel ideas and a hard-working crew of actors.
Unlike the previous Threesomes—which featured plays written and directed by Just ASK's co-founders P. Case Aiken III, Adam Samtur, and Matthew Kagen—this grouping features commissioned works by other playwrights, directed by the Just ASK guys. The opening piece is by Duncan Pflaster, directed by Samtur, and is entitled The Questions of the Queen. It takes place in some futuristic or alternative world ruled by Queen Cindy, whose tyrannical tendencies are noted even before the play begins: as you enter the theatre, a guard named Barry asks if you're wearing pink or red, and frowns and scowls if you're not—Queen Cindy apparently likes people to wear her favorite color. The play itself depicts a taping of Queen Cindy's daily TV show and turns pretty serious when the young, seemingly airheaded and scarily willful ruler brings two people out of the studio audience to tell her whether or not she's a good monarch. There's a twist that I didn't see coming in this play, but I wasn't finally certain exactly what Pflaster wanted to leave his audience with here.
My favorite came next—Trials, written by Will Lacker and directed by Aiken. The play is set in a restaurant, where a young man named Miles and his girlfriend Judith are having an unsuccessful brunch date. The waitress has just spilled something all over Miles's shirt; and Judith is planning how to break the news that she wants to end their relationship. But when Miles comes back from the rest room (after trying to clean up his shirt), he announces that Judith has inspired him to make a spectacular discovery in his scientific research. To give away more will spoil this fun piece; suffice to say that while Trials covers familiar ground in its premise, Lacker has found a way to make it fresh and inventive.
Rounding out the Threesome is Dan Via's Park Slope Cassoulet, in which an earnest, liberal Brooklyn couple cope with the gentrification of their neighborhood in what turns out to be an unusual way. The other character in the play is their new next-door neighbor, Jeanne-Anne, a Southern lesbian Wall Street tycoon. Via surfaces interesting and pertinent issues here, but I can't say that I loved how he's chosen to end the play. Kagen directed this one.
All three pieces are well staged, and well served by Matt Brogan's simple set designs and Juan Ibarra's costumes. The evening moves briskly as each play heads toward its respective twisty end. Ten actors each have opportunities to create a principal role in one of the pieces, along with playing smaller roles in the other plays. Standouts include Regina Gibson and Jeffrey A. Wisniewski, who play the Brooklyn couple in Park Slope Cassoulet as well as a background (but quite humorous) couple in Trials; Patrick Reidy, as the addled scientific genius in Trials; and Sarah e. Jacobs as the increasingly put-upon waitress in Trials and one of the hapless studio audience members in The Questions of the Queen.
Just ASK, now 2-1/2 years old, is definitely gaining experience as an indie production company, with a strong do-it-yourself aesthetic. I'm looking forward to seeing how they develop their own artistic voice and voice in shows to come.
