Making an entrance, building momentum, and wrapping things up with a twist—these key elements of stagecraft are difficult to master.
Now imagine having to achieve all that, with style and skill, in only ten minutes. Even Shakespeare might have been challenged. Yet that’s exactly what the current 8Tens@ Eight aims for. And judging by what I’ve seen, its aim is true. This season, more than ever, with a few caveats.
The acting is remarkable this year. Many well-known figures in local theater have matured and honed their skills to a razor’s edge, and some new faces this season are dazzling the fans at the full-house performances. Even with so much to enjoy, I want to select a few standouts to praise.
But first, the biggest shout-out goes to prescient Festival matriarch and founder Wilma Marcus Chandler, who, inspired by a similar series in Louisville, Kentucky, created our own 8Tens in the mid-1990s. The rest is history. Popularity requires that 8Tens now run for five weeks in two installments, plus staged readings of the runner-up plays for another two weeks (Feb. 27-March 8).
Part 1 plays were dominated by humor. Such Dreams as Stuff is Made On, by Dan McGeehan showed off great timing by principals Eva Schewe and Ben Canant as a social climbing couple foiled by their own aspirations. Notable direction by Karin Babbitt and Janet Norton.
Locker Room Talk, directed by Brad Roades gave perennial 8Tens favorite Avondina Wills a chance to ransack his toolkit of comic body language as a high school coach with assertive life lessons to dispense. Manirose Bobisuthi was the electrifying center of the almost-successful Ad Hominem crisply directed by Davis Banta. This Side of Michigan, directed by Denise Keplinger, was a strange, essentially one-woman scenario spotlighting Stephany Buswell’s knockout performance. Buswell was brilliant. And Brad Roades had the audience in stitches as the can-do rental agent turning himself inside out to entice Ewa Schewe and Noah Syren into signing a lease in Small Cat Negotiable by Nino Greene.
Someone has to say it: the first offering in Part 1, Pronouns, was the stupidest thing ever seen on this stage. Utterly misconceived, this lame attempt to be current and clever was a major waste of Helene Simkin Jara’s valiant directing and earnest acting by Susy Parker, Avondina Wills and Gino Danna. Another questionable choice by the selection committee was the maudlin Henry’s Epitaph. An embarrassing and dated attempt at social commentary.
Part 2, however, showed off some of the best acting on any Santa Cruz stage, led by veterans Ward Willats, Tara McMilin, Marcus Cato, and newcomer Tom Boyle. In the very cleverly written Stephen Hawking’s Train, by Mike Byham, Willats and Chad Davies worked their way up to a disarming plot twist using quasar timing and a galaxy of facial expressions.
In Pelusa, t a SNL-ish episode by Eric Alan Bower, Willats plays an obnoxious suburban homeowner who gives his neighbor, Tom Boyle, a lot to complain about. Willats has an endless arsenal of acting chops and, delightfully, he has an equal in Boyle who knows his way around vocal dexterity and solid stage presence.
The Part 2 opener, The Last Continent by Ken Henry was smoothly directed by Andrew Davids and showcased veteran Marcus Cato in an ingenious role. This vehicle, set both in the present day and back a hundred years in the Antarctic, was top-to-bottom engaging and loaded with letter-perfect acting. Bright and confident stagecraft by Emerson Kapture and terrific work from Scott Kravitz almost elevated Code A, which, alas, nose-dived into a predictable conclusion.
Director Peter Gelblum created a little gem of believable dialogue and emotional chemistry from actors Marcus Cato and Bernadette Glenn, in Line Cooks Like Baby Birds, by Maggie Cregan, an uncategorizable yet mesmerizing slice of real-life discussion between two marrieds who embed innocuous diner chat with serious issues. Sacred Trust by Andy Waddell, whose ending failed the terrific pleasures of the first eight minutes, still offered tasty, oft-hilarious performances from Tara McMilin and Chad Davies as a married couple who’ve been there and done that.
Kudos for effective use of the video projection backdrops on all these never dull (with two, okay three exceptions) plays.
Run out and catch 8Tens@8, running through Feb. 15 at Actors Theatre, 1001 Center St., SC; santacruzactorstheatre.org
