Flux Sunday, January 11th

ALL CYLINDERS CLICKING

Every once in a while, Flux Sundays will have a lightening strike day. All the scripts are tight, the actors connect with the roles, and each scene passes some essential undroppable thing to the next. It doesn’t happen often, but boy did it happen on January 11th, and with all of us seated, no less.

VOLLEYING
Rob Ackerman brought in more of his kinetic comedy, Volleygirls. It’s always good to start the Sundays with this play, because the energy and shared laughter brings the whole group together and gets us breathing in rhythm. Matt Acrhambault continued his duel with Jason Pardine for the laurels of the role Coach, and Drew Valins returned after a long break with his passionate Russian referee.

STEPPING
We next read the first few scenes of a new play of mine, Stepping; a welcome diversion from me finishing the 60’s play! Following a brother and sister with unusual powers stepping through alternate Harlems, I enjoyed especially Ken Glickfeld’s Druncle and Gretchen Poulos’ scrappy Saffire, the bewildered best friend trying to keep up with her new blood sister Bahiya. With 60’s done, I hope to bring more of this play to our Sundays, as it is eager to be written.

LICKSPITTING
Johnna Adam’s epic hexameter farce about a professional lickspittle, buttonholer and go between exiled to the Napoleonic court picked up some heat as their French female counterparts, a not so Simple French Boy, and Napoleon himself battle for supremacy of state and end rhyme. Highlights included our once Oberon Michael Davis crossing gender to play a very different Eglantine, Becky Kelly as the subversive haiku spouting French boy, and Brian Pracht’s continued perfection as Peder Pars the Lickspittle.

WILLING
The zanies of Jeremy Basescu’s The Will continued their power struggle for inheritance of an eccentric tycoon’s fortune as Jane Taylor’s Eleanor nearly seduced David Ian Lee’s Richard into breaking his lawerly judgement. As always, Aaron Michael Zook’s Victor was a hapless triumph. I won’t soon forget watching him, even before his character entered, watching the action as Victor, with the hopeful simpleness that makes this character so much fun.

BOATING
We had more Rob Ackerman as he brought in an older plays of his, Loon Island Picnic. A family has returned to their unchanging summer haunt only to find they’ve changed more than they’d like to admit. Nancy Franklin’s defiance against time as Phylis played beautifully off Richard Watson’s cantankerous honesty; and Katie Hartke’s Marcy was perhaps pleasantly suprised by some unusual admissions from her tongue tied cousin Ben.

SLAPPING
The gentle regret of Loon Island Picnic became a violent defense of older values in David Ian Lee’s Long Sought, More Perfect. David Crommett’s Rodney tried to reason some values of the 60’s into Christina Shipp’s mockingly post-PC Heather; as a battle for social right masked a deeper battle for inheritance. An almost unwitting act of violence sears the end of this scene, and send another battle for a will into high gear.

Six very different plays caught fire in one of our hotter Sundays in some time.