Variations on Desire

By John Becker, Barbara Bryan, Joe Dennison, Chris Graybill, Gavin Heck, Kimberley Lynne, Tim Paggi, Laura Ridgeway, Stacey Lane, and Rosemary Frisino Toohey

With 10 plays, five actors, and four directors, Variations is a coordinated collaboration of local playwrights. According to art director James Knipple, the whole project started at a party last December where Run of the Mill assembled a group of local directors, playwrights, and actors to brainstorm ideas. After a few months, 10 playwrights came up with 10 sketches dealing with the romantic predicament.

Ten-minute running times sound like a handicap, but they actually inject intensity and focus into short sketches. And since there’s not much time for resolutions, the time limit drives home the play’s unifying theme: that none of these characters gets what he or she wants.

The opening play, “Berry Season” by Rosemary Toohey, sets the pace with a quick, clever comedy around a pretty simple premise: a guy works a checkout counter and encounters the customer of his wet dreams. In the end, she pays the bill and leaves. That’s where it ends: on a note of unrequited lust.

The Kabuki-style “Coming Up, Going Down” by Gavin Heck is the most imaginative piece. It involves two petty demons generally pulling the strings on a pair of doomed lovers. The doomed courtship takes familiar turns, but the masks and loose choreography turn it into a bizarre, hypnotic dance.

Vicarious love is an omnipresent theme. Kimberley Lynne’s “God Dolls” involves a boy and girl outside a club. They break the ice by playing with wire puppets, discussing Newtonian physics, and impersonating French lovers. Tim Paggi’s “Crackers” is a high-energy comedy that involves a woman who lives through her cat, eavesdrops on the couples downstairs, and heads through a long string of disastrous dates.

For some characters, desire means personality change. In Joe Dennison’s “Red Ridiculous,” an introverted office worker tries to break out of the routine by dressing in a red wig and heading out to the dance halls. John Becker’s “Life Is Elsewhere” occurs at an artsy Baltimore party as a wannabe beat poet dressed in a cat costume fires off quotes from Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs at a skeptical, subdued single guy.

Two of the plays are vehicles for interesting, meditative monologues. “Possession” by Barbara Bryan is a hypnotic, solemn scenario in which a dazed, homeless combat veteran delivers passionate panegyrics to his old apartments. Chris Graybill’s “13” shows a young girl confronting life’s driving paradox: the more you want, the less time there is to get it.

Of all the plays, “The Play About the Bed” by Laura Ridgeway is closest to being full-length, with three acts and a romantic triangle. In it, three art-school graduates reunite for one more evening of drinking and sexual experimentation. The effect is funny but also slightly pathetic. Then there’s Stacey Lane’s “Naked People Play”—the title pretty much says it all.

Since each actor has four or five roles, there’s not a lot of room to give them all the credit they deserve for tackling this production. Dahlia Kaminsky’s highly energized, versatile performances carried several of the plays. Matthew Crosby isn’t comfortable in all his roles, but his unsettling, intense performance in “Possession” is the evening’s finest. Diana Cherkas’s characters have a restrained, mysterious note that effectively contrasts with Kaminsky’s. Jeremy Blaustein is a little tough to pigeonhole: He moves easily from the male lead in “God Dolls” to playing the cat in “Crackers.”

It’s tempting to come out with a best and worst play, but it’d probably be missing the point. There are ups and downs, rough edges and smoothies, but Variations is a genuine collaborative effort that moves fast even when the edges are rough. The plays are short, melodic, and funny; that may explain why the evening begins with the Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend.” The Baltimore Playwrights Festival could even take a few cues from this production. You don’t need a committee of judges to assemble talent in this city, just a good party in the middle of winter.