When their friendship hits its expiry date, two teenage girls make their split as formal as a divorce in the Blueberry Hill Accord, one of seven short plays performed this week in Central Alberta Theatre’s One-Act Cabaret.
Studious Lindsay, played by Tara Rorke, decides she’s outgrown gossipy Hannah (Nicole Leal), in this amusing comedy by Daryl Watson. It opened on Thursday at the Nickle Studio, upstairs at the Memorial Centre.
But the girls carry too much incriminating evidence against each other to simply walk away — so deciding who gets to tell what stories becomes part of their negotiated accord.
Lindsay and Hannah say exactly what they think in the in-your-face style that high schoolers use so effectively.
Yet, the finalé of this endearing play — performed with great comic timing at Wednesday night’s dress rehearsal — becomes as poignant as the end of a marriage, as the two girls wistfully recognize their shared history is what they have in common.
The Blueberry Hill Accord, directed by Mike Mohr, was the slickest and most moving play of the evening. It was also the only published play performed — the other six were written by Central Alberta playwrights, so are original works-in-progress.
Unfortunately the first two — Out of Control by Jordan Galloway and Cryin’ In My Beer by Sharon Lightbown — still have a ways to go before being considered truly performance worthy.
Both plays involve beer drinkers which, as any sober person knows, are not an innately funny bunch — especially in the absence of witty lines.
Out of Control is about a college house party that turns tragic. But it meanders for too long without a discernible point, and involves annoying characters who don’t interact like real people.
If Galloway pared away unnecessary dialogue, the plot has promise, however. It would be interesting to see it half-a-dozen drafts down the road.
The plot of Cryin’ in My Beer, on the other hand, needs rethinking.
It relies too heavily on self-indulgent talk about computers and banking that produces scant laughs or dramatic tension.
By comparison, The Spell that Binds, a one-woman play by Jillian Tallas that requires Tallas to perform four different characters (mostly witches), was bizarre enough to be interesting.
Tallas seems to grasp what makes one-act plays work. Like short stories, they need to grip the audience quickly. They need recognizable or absorbing characters, sharp, to-the-point dialogue and some kind of hook, whether quirky, funny, bizarre or shocking.
Box and Chain certainly had a lock on the latter. This black comedy by Matt Dale seemed to have a stock plot: A seasoned gangster is trying to get through one last job before retirement, without his cocky partner messing things up.
But Dale added unexpected, even appalling, twists that put a new spin on the much-used concept.
The play, directed by Jeremy Robinson, and starring Richard Jackson as Lenny and Derek Olinek as Garey, could be tightened up, but has all the elements to rivet an audience.
The two remaining plays, The Dream by John Burnham and Palindrome by Airyn Street, were also engaging, although preachy.
The Dream, like the popular Mitch Albom book Tuesdays with Morrie, is full of common-sensical wisdom, in this case delivered by a psychiatrist (Michael Sutherland), who inexplicably wears caftans and giant chicken’s feet slippers.
Homilies such as “people are as happy as they want to be” are stated for the benefit of patient Todd (Paul Sutherland), who’s miserable after his divorce and diagnosis of Lou Gehrig’s disease.
While fans of self-help books will find words to live by, this play could use some serious shortening.
Palindrome, written and directed by Ponoka high school teacher Street, is about a homophobic teenager who is zapped by her fairy godmother into a world in which homosexuality is the norm.
The play delivers the moral about tolerance in a more heavy-handed way than the whimsical musical Zanna Don’t! by Tim Acito, but it’s a worthy message all the same. And the young cast — especially Hannah Barrett and Chandler Vold — pull off believable performances.
While this year’s One-Act Cabaret doesn’t necessarily offer a seamless evening of theatre, it features thought-provoking fare and is a good preview of up-and-coming local playwriting talent.
The cabaret, which includes musical entertainment by Dalmane Owchar, continues through Saturday, with tickets from Ticket Central, 403-347-0800.
lmichelin@www.reddeeradvocate.com