Little Plays Prove to be Very Big Fun
July 20, 2004
Theater
'Very Little Play'
Connoisseurs of the hip and the odd now
have one more item for their calendars. Abbreviated Enlightenment's
ochen chotto schpiel:"very little play" is just as strange and amusing
as its moniker - which translates words from Russian, Japanese and
German.
Actually, the last word should be plural. The show, which runs little
more than an hour, consists of tiny bits of humor, improv, music and
poetry thrown together in random order. Producer- directors Leslie and
Brandon Fletcher, who actually live in Chicago, have assembled a cast of
actors, improv performers, musicians - even a painter who created
original collages during the show for the world premiere on Saturday.
The participants and the components may change every week.
Some of the very little plays were very funny indeed - all written by
the performers, based on their own real-life experiences. That's what
made "Weird Stepmother Game Show" so piquant. Holly Hickman and the
show's drummer, Daniel Lyons, competed. An audience volunteer had to
judge whose stories were weirder - the one about the Russian mail-order
stepmother who died in a most unusual way won out.
Matthew Byrd's "Fagawalis Homobrex" was a TV commercial advertising a
new drug - that turned a couple's gay son into a football star. Kathleen
Vaught's "Spread-Eagle Shocker - or a Train Is Coming That Can't Be
Stopped" offered a first-time mom's adventures in the labor-and-delivery
room.
The audience gets nametags with wild aliases upon entering. A few get
put on the spot to play word games. The programs are bingo cards that
you fill in as each segment of the show comes up.
The two improvisers, Spencer Prokop and Maxine Shapiro, even give us a
little critique of the show so far. Ms. Shapiro hit a sympathetic chord
in the audience when she kept repeating, "I didn't get it," about Andra
Laine's rather pretentious poem accompanied by slides depicting the
ravages of war.
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