Dysfunctional Family Makes for Dark Comedy in The Lyons ” This is a show that deals with life, death and everything in between–” The Lyons at 2nd Story The lives of a dysfunctional family take center stage in the black comedy The Lyons, which opened in previews January 10 and is running through February 9 at Warren’s 2nd Story Theatre. The Lyons was written by Nicky Silver and debuted on Broadway at the Cort Theatre in April 2012. This is a show that deals with life, death and everything in between. Paula Faber, a veteran member of the theater’s acting company, gives a tour de force performance as Rita, the overbearing wife of Ben Lyons (Vince Petronio), who is dying from cancer. Rita, stuck in a 40- year loveless marriage, now thinks of the future without Ben and plans to re-decorate their home. Ben lays in his hospital bed and speaks in a flurry of profanities. He is constantly annoyed by Rita and despises her. Their grown children Curtis (Kevin Broccoli) and Lisa (Lara Hakeem) also come to his hospital room to pay a visit. Lisa has left an abusive marriage and is a recovering alcoholic. Curtis, who is gay, has had little to do with his father, who is homophobic. Throughout the play, all the resentments between the Lyons bubble up to the surface. Rita is a fundamentally selfish woman who will not spare anyone’s feelings. However, she is not a one dimensional caricature either. Late in Act One, while her husband sleeps under dimmed lights, Rita realizes how empty her life will be once Ben is gone. The man she has spent so many years with has occupied a major part of her time and energy. Faber masterfully manages to gain the audience’s sympathy in a short monologue. Broccoli dominates most of Act Two, when Curtis has a fateful encounter with a wily real estate agent (Jeff Church) who is not who he appears to be. Broccoli gives a note perfect performance as Curtis, a troubled man who writes short stories for a living and has a non-existent love life. Petronio has a lot of funny moments as he quarrels with Rita about her plan to redecorate their living room after he is gone. There is also a touching and bittersweet moment when he reveals that despite all the hostility he expresses toward Rita, deep down he really loves her. The dialogue is witty and sometimes poetic. One exchange goes like this: Ben: “Rita, I’m dying!” Rita: “Just try to be positive.” Lucia Gill Case plays Ben’s nurse, who has some tart repartee late in the play with Curtis. Mark Peckham directed the production, which moves at a brisk pace. The downstage theater provides an intimate setting for a show like The Lyons. The four lead actors convincingly portray a family at odds with each other. The Lyons all seek happiness in their own way, and by the end, you are pulling for them to find it. 2nd Story Theatre DownStage, 28 Market Street, Warren, RI 02885, Box Office:401-247-4200, Web:2ndstorytheatre.com, Email: [email protected] Contemporary Plays Around for 24 Hours “Sooner or later at every 24-Hour Play Festival, there arrives a moment where everyone comes together for the common cause of ripping up tiny bits of paper.” – Andy Hoover, playwright (one of six) for CTC’s 24-Hour Play Festival. In February, 1920, a group of Princeton student thespians staged their first production. Their theater was a dorm room and a blanket hung over a string that served as a curtain. What started as an exercise in parody and improvisation became a tradition for Princeton’s Theatre Intime. Their 24-Hour Play Festival is still billed as a “wacky, caffeine-fueled tradition [where] everything but the kitchen sink gets thrown into some wild productions, all written and staged in just 24 hours! Written by various authors. Directed by various directors.” Princeton alum and CTC Artistic Director, Christopher Simpson, brought the tradition to South County in 2006 and now Contemporary Theater Company is poised to present their version of the festival for the ninth year running. The premise seems simple enough until you break down the elements that make this unique offering possible. This is not improvisation, which CTC covers excellently with their late Friday evening Micetro series, but there is still very little time for structure, forcing the writers, directors and performers to think fast, think once and commit to those choices, however bizarre. Much like Christopher Guest’s loosely structured mockumentaries (Best in Show, Spinal Tap, etc.), there are a few guidelines, but the artists are left to their own devices in connecting the dots. At the start of the day, writers are given a short list of prompts and challenges and a few set lines that they must include in their pieces. Examples of guidelines include: “Two people speak the exact same line at the exact same time for very different reasons,” “include an ‘unstageable’ event” (which, in a past festival, resulted in a whale exploding onstage), and “someone has a gun that they didn’t know they had.” In addition, there are six lines that all of the writers must include in each play, giving audiences a chance to anticipate their usage in each piece. Directors are prompted to include elements such as: “Make the audience do something,” or “A musical number, sung sincerely” (an official composer is on standby, ready for such a prompt). Although all of the action takes place on January 11, the social media campaign is well under way to hype the event. Statuses from various participants betray a level of anxiety that would seem to indicate that work is already underway, although nothing can really be done in advance. On the big day, potential audiences can go to the Contemporary Theater Company Facebook page to see a play-by-play of the festival’s progress, from initial writing sessions at midnight, to actor auditions at 9 am, to frenzied, on-the-fly technical preparations as crews scramble to create costumes and props based on little more than a Red Bull-fueled fever dream. Other than showing off the talents and versatility of the assembled artists involved, why produce such an insane event? The resulting plays are not only untested, but are still dripping wet. Anything can happen here, and as exciting as that may be to watch, there is no shortage of suffering going on behind the scenes leading up to the 8 pm curtain time. The answer lies in the process, not necessarily the final product. Much like CTC’s work with South Kingstown High School in the Testing 1,2,3,4 series, the idea is to bring together the community for an immersive, collaborative happening. Trust is the watchword here as there is simply no time to take on individual points of view or take too much time to protect any one person’s vision. The festival is a distillation of the sweat of many to create something new, ephemeral and, as the previous eight events have proven, something brilliantly compelling and hilarious. And that brings us back to Andy Hoover’s quote from above. At one point during the festival in 2010, barely 15 minutes before showtime as the audience filtered in and took their seats in anticipation, the festival’s writers, actors and directors gathered together. This assemblage was not a moment of unity before presenting the big event. This was not a last minute tweaking of details. All available bodies were gathered in order to furiously rip up colored pieces of paper and pour them into an urn. This one moment symbolized the frantically collaborative ethos that defines the 24-Hour Play Festival. No one person is less valuable, no need lesser than any other. And if an urn of construction paper is still required minutes before opening, then everyone is ready to jump in and make it happen. This is not a rarity in theater, but nowhere else do roles and responsibilities become so blurred in the service of a finished series of fully blown plays ready to present to a paying audience. So, to fully experience the 24-Hour Play Festival, tune in to their Facebook page and then head over to South Kingstown High School auditorium on January 11 to witness the results of CTC’s signature event – 24 actors, six writers, and six directors working midnight-to-midnight to conceive, rehearse and perform six original 15-minute plays. The process may stand alone, but the work can only truly come to fruition with an audience. Think of yourself as just one piece of colored paper ready to join hundreds of others in the spirit of collaboration. No matter what happens, you’ve never seen anything like it before. CTC presents the 9th Annual 24-Hour Play Festival at SK High School Auditorium. 8 to 10:30 pm, January 11. Visit contemporarytheatercompany.com/box-office/ for tickets or call 401-218-0282. All tickets, $12. The Artists’ Exchange’s Christmas Carol Brings Tidings of Joy If Harold had his way, the world would exist solely at the tip of his purple crayon and maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. What a child transfers from hand to paper is a direct manifestation of how they see the world, or at least as they would like it be. This notion is the central conceit for Artists’ Exchange 10th Anniversary production of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Director Clara Weishahn has crafted a simple, but effective framework for a retelling of the Christmas classic along mostly traditional lines, but with a sentimentally contemporary flavor.