…. cultural ambassadors …
A travel weary Egyptian ceremonial police band on their way to play a concert in the Israeli city of Petah Tikva get off the bus by mistake at the small town of Bet Hatikva (you can see how that mistake can be made). There won’t be another bus until morning. Thank heavens for the mistake – or we wouldn’t have this wonderful musical!
Itamar Moses catches today’s lingo like butterflies. Completeness is about young people, in the Computer Science and Biology Departments of a university, talking about love, molecular biology and computer science, while going through a variety of partners. It’s good to have a play about people who are intelligent and care about their work.
Elliot is a Computer Science Assistant Professor (or thereabouts) who — beyond his sleepy-eyed cool — is dedicated to solving THE problem in Computer Science, “The Salesman’s Problem” — and if you see the play, he will tell you all about its complexities. He’s so articulate you feel he knows everything, except how to resolve the conflict between his anxiety about commitment (described in a hilariously hyperbolic monolog that’s a high point of the play) and a yearning to settle in with “the one” or “love” or whatever.
The Flea is presenting six plays by six authors, each with some reference to the recession. The actors are drawn from The Flea’s “Bats,” the young, capable and energetic actors of their resident company — you find yourself hoping for a good show at least as much for them as for yourself, but it doesn’t happen. For most of the plays, the link to the recession is so synthetic it doesn’t matter. The plays don’t matter much either, which is too bad for what must have seemed like a good idea.
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.
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