PICK-UP 6
nytheatre.com review by Soline McLain
August 15, 2002
Pick-up 6 is the catchy and appropriate title of a collection of
six one-act plays currently playing at the CSV-Milagro Theatre as part
of FringeNYC. The six plays in this evening present a wide variety of
characters and plots, ranging from the story of a couple who are united
in their co-dependence on alcohol to the story of a husband broker who
operates like a real-estate broker. Of these six, the most enjoyable piece of the evening was Light Reading in which an illiterate man meets a teacher in a train station and is inspired to read because of her beauty and because of his desire to continue communication with her via letters. The story is sweetly played out by Jenny Bass as the teacher, Ann, and David A. Green as Martin, the "student" turned writer. The motif of books, started at the beginning (and by the fact that Martin cannot read), is appropriately continued throughout the short piece as each new scene and setting is announced as a new chapter in a book. Lines such as "You can read me like a book" also continue this literary motif.
Elsewhere, strong performances are given by Helene Galek, who plays both the co-dependent wife in One in the Oven and the husband-broker in the play of that title. She brought life to both very different roles. Holt Bailey in Where the Sun Don’t Shine, and Victor Barbella and Susan Barrett of Mashed Potatoes, who banter well with each other over the process of cooking mashed potatoes for a Thanksgiving dinner, also give strong performances.
Overall, the evening was enjoyable, but I was thankful that some of the plays were specifically written for short attention spans. Pick-up 6 is a wonderful idea and way of supporting new works and authors. I applaud this playwright-initiated project and wish it the best of luck in future fringes.
