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Friday, July 26, 2024

REVIEW: 30TH "JERSEY VOICES" REVISITS PAST SUBMISSIONS FOR A SATISFYING EVENING OF THEATER

By Ruth Ross

This year, Jersey Voices, the Chatham Community Players’ annual festival of one-act plays by New Jersey playwrights, celebrates its 30th anniversary—20 of which, since 2000, I have reviewed!

This time out, instead of asking for submissions, the festival organizers selected plays sent in over the past decade that never quite made it to the stage and sent them to directors for feedback to come up with six for production on the intimate Chatham Playhouse stage through August 4.

Per usual, the result is a bit of a mixed bag, with some plays more successfully realized than others but all bound by superb acting—this time by CCP regulars, veterans of other local stages and some newbies.

The evening starts off with three dynamite playlets. Based on the prophecy from The Book of Revelations, Jeanne Johnston’s comedy, Blow, Gabriel, Blow, involves a hapless lumberyard employee who is unexpectedly bequeathed $1 million by his late high school band teacher if he will but blow on the trumpet delivered to him by a beautiful lawyer—an act summarily derailed by the arrival of an insistent male stranger who urges him not to do so. Without spoiling the fun of discovery, permit me to congratulate the trio of actors for superb performances: Elizabeth Renner as a vivacious, enthusiastic Luci; Benjamin Hunt as her arrogant, persistent nemesis Michael; and the very winning Chip Prestera as Gabriel (Left, center with Hunt and Renner), who wishes the encounter had never happened. Ed Faver directs the comedic goings-on with panache.

A two-hander, Sunday in the Park with Will, deftly directed by Cass Cochrane and acted by Miranda Montalvo (Gina) and José Rivera (Garrett), portrays a poignant encounter between a teenager and her mother’s latest boyfriend. As Gina tests him, Garrett maintains his equanimity and makes a solid case for why he is different from the others who have disappointed her and her mother. Montalvo’ surface brattiness and obvious deep love and concern for her (unseen) mother contrasts beautifully with Rivera’s thoughtful, respectful response to her concerns. The dénouement of the piece is both convincing and satisfying.

The third most satisfying play, A Leap of Faith, by Susan Brown-Peitz, features drug addict William (Andrew Marr), just released from the last of a string of rehab stays, who finds himself with nowhere to go when his father refuses to let him return to the family home. Will his much-wronged-by-him sister Beth (Sarah Pharaon) let him stay with her instead, or will she turn him out into the streets again? Director John A.C. Kennedy noted in the talkback that he and the playwright had worked hard to develop the play from its original conception; the result is a deeply emotional, hard-driving look at addiction and its toll on an entire family, most of all, sibling relationships. Marr is terrific as the earnest, hopeful but not too optimistic William; his uncertainty regarding his future is palpable. Pharaon’s Beth is a bundle of nerves and doubt expressed in her facial expressions and body language as she decides whether she will help him—once again—or not. It takes a while for their trust to be rebuilt, so the ending is reassuring and rewarding.

Less successful, mostly because setting and character relationships are rather murky, are Sexpo 2091 by Alex Bernstein, and Lillian Whistles Back, by Alexis Kozak. For the former, if I hadn’t looked at the title, I would not have realized right away that it was set in the future. Although it’s very funny on the surface, Sexpo 2091 actually addresses the more somber, and relatable themes of aging and death. Alyson Permoulié Halter elicits terrific performances from newcomer Richard Sibello (Don) and veteran Lynn Langone (Peg) as a couple out of sync with their approach to everlasting youth. Interestingly, the playwright eschews the trappings of sci fi situations—robots, mechanical stuff—to focus on the very human approaches to youth and virility to remind us that not everything lasts forever; it can be derailed, sometimes on purpose.

The more dramatic Lillian Whistles Back suffers from a similar trait: the relationship between Walter (Jeff Campbell) and Lillian (Christine Orzepowski) is unknown until the final minutes of the play, and even then, we don’t know if Walter is Lillian’s late daughter’s spouse or boyfriend. What we do know is that he is living in her house, dressed in his bathrobe and Crocs, conducting research on birds, and boarding up the windows while she’s out at work, earning money to make ends meet. Orzepowski is frustration personified; she expresses it through her words and facial expressions, and we sympathize with her as she goes head-to-head with newcomer Campbell’s very annoying Walter. Had the relationship between the two been made clearer earlier in the play, the ending would have been even more powerful.

The two playlets that, for me, were a bit iffy are The Forgiven, by Alex Wilkie and directed by Julia Cassisi, and Negate the Gods, by Clinton Festa and directed by Stephen A. Minnella. Focused on the aftermath of an act of betrayal, The Forgiven features veterans Gloria Lamoureaux and Lauri MacMillan in star turns as Helen and Lois, respectively. Lois has it in for Helen, who conducted an adulterous affair with Lois’s brother-in-law as his wife lay braindead in a hospital bed. MacMillan snarls and stomps her way around the stage until she erupts with righteous—albeit suspect—indignation spews forth at the more sunny, annoyingly cheerful, clueless (?) Lamoureaux goes about her task of creating Christmas decorations. One could call this a comedic drama, I suppose, but other than the marvelous acting, it felt less satisfying as the latter.

The final play, Negate the Gods, involves the encounter of three of Greek mythology’s most wretched characters: Prometheus (Nick Mathews), chained to a rock and attacked daily by an eagle who eats his liver because he gave human beings fire; the nymph Io (Missy Renwick), tormented by Hera for having an affair with Zeus with a gadfly who buzzes around her and bites her; and the devious tyrant Sisyphus (Ross Pohling (left, with Renwick), forced by the gods to roll an immense boulder uphill only for it to roll back down as it nears the top. The way one deals with such eternal torment—or any torment, I guess—is the crux of the play. Does one moan about it incessantly, as Prometheus and Io do, or does one accept it like Sisyphus and thus negate the power of the gods over humans? In contrast to Renwick and Mathews’ constant whining, Pohling’s sunny optimism as he rolls his rock around the stage gives credence to his way of avoiding a pity party and making the best of a bad situation. Great idea, incomplete conception—but well-acted.

As I have written before, “If it’s summer, it must be time for Jersey Voices!” Once again, the Chatham Community Players have produced a smorgasbord of one-act plays that touch, challenge and make us laugh. Talented directors and actors make this an event not to be missed. If you don’t like one play, there’s always another coming up!

So, if the heat’s got you down, get on over to the cool, intimate black box theater in Chatham to catch this year’s version of Jersey Voices before it closes!

Jersey Voices will be performed at the Chatham Playhouse, 23 N. Passaic Ave., Chatham, through August 4. For information and tickets, call the box office at 973.635.7363 or visit www.chathamplayers.org online. 

Note: adult themes. Leave the kids at home.