Around Des Moines

Sin sold out the Fourth Street Theatre when the Iowa Scriptwriters Alliance presented seven 15-minute plays from April 24-27, 2008. At the April 27th matinee performance about 75 people were in the audience. The room was crowded and talk around the place was that at least the Saturday night show also was well-attended.

The seven plays were selected by competition, as were the directors. Then the directors chose their casts. As with short stories, the best short plays make exquisite use of each word. Not all of the seven sins achieved that level of intensity. In addition, while the performances were to highlight the scriptwriters, some of the plays were memorable primarily due to the acting.

Most of the plays were very traditional in their casting and dialogue but contemporary in their humorous references. That also made most of them very forgettable.

The show started off with the fast-paced Nursemaid by Erich Goldstein. Slim Tim Shafton, the Fitness King, was on a gluttony strike to protest the mayor’s nursemaid-style governance, such as banning trans fats in restaurants. The characters were given multiple dimensions, complex reasons, and life histories merely through the power of dialogue.

Ethelyn Boddy’s The Ugly Identical Twin took on envy with a story that moved through time. It offered Lyra E. Halsten, as the protagonist and the antagonist, opportunities for a variety of emotions. However, the frequent pauses needed to indicate a different time and place disrupted the flow of the play. I’ve seen one-person shows that handle the transitions much better.

The use of sexual attraction in advertising and sexual harassment were common themes in Lust for Men by Lindsay Tornquist. The presence of Warren Westlund, who acted in three of the seven plays, saved this one with his over-the-top performance. There were several good jokes in the play but there was nothing that seemed original.

In Wealthy Mr. Dezille, Sean Gannon’s play on avarice, the power of the soliloquy was demonstrated. The premise of the play was that Mr. Dezille only cared about making money and that cost him his business empire and his sanity. James Meade gave a quality performance as Dezille but there were too many details in the play inconsistent with reality for any actor to save it. I could believe that Dezille was in a mental institution, I just could not accept why he was there or how the nurse behaved.

David D. DeBord’s choice of a local government’s community council to represent sloth in The Municipal Tree was a delight. This is the type of play that doesn’t strike an audience member right away but builds upon a theme to create a memorable impression. I also have to give credit to Patrick Gouran, the director, because this play also demanded good timing to convey the humor properly. While I enjoyed the play because of all the years I’ve spent dealing with non-profit and governmental organizations, the play did not have enough universal themes to make it a mass media hit.

Closing Time, in which the sexiest and most beautiful movie star walks into a bar to escape the media attention while on location, needed to be a longer play. William S.E. Coleman’s story progressed smoothly enough from the first encounter to the futon in the break room. However, this was the type of story that needed pauses to build up the tension and to make the characters more than one-dimensional.

Chuck Hughes’ The Passengers poked fun at wrath and at the scriptwriters’ sinful production. Essentially the playwright was saying anger can be countered with laughter.

M.R. Field reviews local arts for AroundDesMoines.com.