… cat’s cradle …
The broad narrow playing space downstairs at the Flea has been painted the
reddish sandy color that says Southwest and there’s a weathered sandstone rock. In this evocative Western scene, a college age foursome traveling together enjoy – not much though, as it turns out – an interlude at the rim of the Grand Canyon.
Love/Stories is a delightful romp through how we speak with one another when we are getting into and out of love. There are five short plays that move into one another with a pleasant fluidity, as the actors, members of the Bats, the Flea’s young resident company mix and match into couples. The author has a fine ear for contemporary language and amusingly recognizable contemporary types who nonetheless come across as true individuals.
My favorite was part monologue in which a young actress, doing a favor for a playwright, spins out a problematic history for a successfully auditioning actor to spoil his chances, inventing negatives with more and more enthusiasm and detail as she warms into it. Others specially loved the talk-back with an audience in which an interpreter with a marvelous Slavic accent conveys the pain (But You Will Get Used To It) of a Russian avant-garde theater director.
The last of the five should have been left out: it’s a self-indulgent variation on the topic of “what should I write about” as the subject for a narrative. But, you can look back past it to an evening filled with smiles and several good laughs.
Love/Stories plays Downstairs at the Flea Theater in Tribeca — extended run through April 25 (that’s the second extension for this play that’s really found its own popularity!).
Upstairs on the main stage is Kaspar Hauser: A Foundling’s Opera, a world premier by Liz Swados and Erin Courtney, through March 30, – find my review here.
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