The 1 Minute Plays - A Review

If Ten Minute plays require a mastery of the succinct, then what pray tell demands the craft of the One Minute play? Boston already has its own One Minute Play festival, which I had the privilege of being in this past January (along with 65 other local actors). And both witnessing the over hundred one minute plays of that production and again seeing thirty today, my mind reels at the sheer variety so many authors manage to pack into such a small little package.

I mean, after all, you barely have enough time to establish a sketch of a character or a situation, let alone allow them to develop. Some of the plays hinged on setting up a situation and then subverting out expectations with a twist ending, making the plays essentially a one minute joke. I have to admit, that I found the ones that did this today less appealing. Marika Barnett’s Lost and Found had a woman trying to convince an airline customer service representative to help her find her missing luggage. She eventually reveals that the contents of the luggage is the decomposing corpse of her husband that she killed. The twist ending? She didn’t kill her husband at all, but made up the story to expedite the process… which doesn’t really make any sense. Similarly Jump by Janet Kenney sees a husband and wife renewing their vows right before doing a skydive. She’s exuberant. He’s terrified. It turns out he has a right to be, for as soon as he jumps she calls out after him to look up as she wants to see his face when he finds out his parachute won’t open. In that case, the twist seemed to undermine what was otherwise a pretty funny play which paired marriage with “taking a plunge”, literally.

Better were some of the high concept pieces. A great example of this (AND a twist ending) was John Minigan’s Necktie, in which an anthropomorphized necktie is highly distressed when his owner’s wife opens the closet door and begins removing articles of clothing. He (and we) assume that she’s finally making good on her threat to donate items to good will, until she takes the suit his owner wanted to be buried in, and we realize that his owner is now dead.

Another exceptionally delightful high concept play was William Boardman’s Time is Running Out which was in essence a litany of puns involving a keeper of what can best be described as a “Time Zoo” having released all of these wild units of time, leading to “Lost Weekends” and fleeting minutes. Christian Cole-Howards’s Charade, performed by the same actor (the wonderfully sardonic Alex Cook), also entertained with a man frantically guessing in a game of charades the phrase: “I want a divorce”.

The other three actors were also wonderful: Becca Lewis (SO good in Apollinaire’s Peggy Pickett earlier this year), Christopher Webb, and Elissa Forsythe who wonderfully forgot she was one of the plays and once nudged opened her character’s first line with : “I forgot.” It was a great spontaneous moment and the room erupted into laughter.

Though, for my money the best play was Erin Striff’s Only. I’m frankly astonished with how much characterization, story, and feeling Striff managed to convey in one minute’s time: A man furiously tugs at a slot machine as his sister implores him to stop. But we soon discover that man is not just a hopeless gambling addict. He’s trying to win enough money to afford treatment for his mother, a mother who is hinted at, is beyond the help medicine might offer. It’s a heartbreaking portrayal of a family impotent in the face of disease, and it was so dense with meaning and characterization that I’m still astonished by the craftsmanship.

Many of the other plays were both funny or poignant. I loved a particular exchange in Regularly Scheduled by Brandon M. Crose in which a family of couch potatoes is devastated by a malfunctioning T.V. The sincerity with which Alex Cook says, “I’ve failed you” is only matched by the equally sincere agreement by his little girl: “You’ve failed us.” Also striking was Becca Lewis’s performance in Patricide by Carolyn Gage. The play, in which a woman confronts her estranged father over the phone about the sexual abuse he inflicted on her as a child was spectacularly performed. So completely believable and deeply felt that I was astonished she was able to snap back up and into another character so readily. It’s especially impressive when you consider the breakneck pace with which each play shifted from one to the next.

Of a side note, it should be pointed out that all of these plays were readings. They were not fully staged and only a few had anything approaching blocking. Moreover, unlike the larger plays, stage directions were not included. That being said, I was pretty impressed how often I felt like I didn’t need them. Only one play baffled me: George Smart’s Take Two. Even the representative of the Dramatist’s Guild who heralded us from one play to the next seemed perplexed as to when it began and when it ended. I’m not sure I’m willing to blame the play itself, as it seemed to rely on imagery and staging which we were unable to witness.

So that’s that. It was super fun and a nice brisk way to introduce each of the longer segments. Again, all the actors and playwrights should commend themselves. A very fun time was had by me.