'Briefs' are agonizingly long

By JOHN FLEMING

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 19, 2000

TAMPA -- The short play has become popular in recent years, as theaters have embraced the idea that people's attention spans are slipping. But that's probably a dubious assumption -- after all, movies are running longer than ever and they don't seem to be hurting at the box office -- and it's not doing playwrights any favors, either. Every writer knows it's much harder to write short.

For proof of the proposition, consider the 13th annual production of Stageworks' "Briefs," a program of six new plays that are just 10 or 15 minutes long. They're by more or less unknown playwrights, five of whom are from Florida, so you could chalk it up as a learning experience for the sake of art.

But it's painful for the audience. Pointlessness is the common denominator of these exercises from a bad acting class.

In Craig Alpaugh's Lethal Death IV, a pair of self-loathing screenwriters sell out. "How do you write dialogue for someone who lets his fists do the talking?" Ron (Jim Pemberton) asks his partner in action-movie authorship, Dave (Christopher Zanitti). They write the dialogue.

Jeff Johnson's Kickback is totally opaque, with three lowlifes (Peter Hughes, James Clark, Chris Rutherford) trapped in a seedy boarding house where they squabble in malevolent, pseudo-Pintersque fashion.

Then there's Folie a Deux, a play by Ray Zacek about a dominatrix, Lois (Igna Cote), and Clark (Stephen Smith), the smooth-talking guy who is obsessed with her. It is supposed to be sexy, with a nasty edge, but turns out to be a bore. Featured is the cliche prop for our time, a cell phone that rings at a key moment.

In Locked In by Gina Murray, the bad-girls-behind-bars scenario gets a workout from five women in blue coveralls and shower clogs. All that's really new is the local reference to the Pasco jail.

Chiarascuro by Lisa Dillman is the most polished work, but the mother-daughter encounter suffers from misguided direction. It's played by Ginger King and Eileen Koteles with lots of stagey gesture and inflection. They give the impression of trying to underline every telling word or poetic phrase, as if making a presentation to small, not very bright children.

Finally, William Gilmore's Curses allows Richard Coppinger and Angela Romero to overact strenuously in portraying a man and the voodoo priestess he hires to cast a spell on his ex-wife.

Even though the performance was only a few minutes, it felt interminable.

Following Sunday's matinee performance, there will be a discussion by playwrights, actors, directors and audience members. It will be led by Bruce Rodgers, associate director of the Asolo Theatre, one of the judges who chose the plays.

If you go

In "Briefs," six short plays are performed by Stageworks at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday through July 30 at the Hillsborough Community College auditorium in Ybor City. Tickets are $10 and $12. There is a staged reading of the full-length Elevator Music by Warner D. Conarton at 7:30 p.m. Thursday. Tickets are $3 and $5. Call (813) 258-6757