Sunday evening in the Keene Theater RC drama students performed 8 of David Ives’ popular farces. It was a joint production with the course RC HUMS 482 providing the directors and RC HUMS 281 suppling the actors. The Ives collaboration has become an annual tradition and if all the years are like Sunday night’s energetic and witty performance it should definitely be continued.
The production opened with Ives’ Mere Mortals, during which 3 construction workers take their lunch break. In addition to having convincing New Jersey accents, the actors had a group chemistry that made the scene both believable and entertaining. The entire farce took place almost stationary as they never moved from where they were sitting, despite the fact that during the course of the conversation one person declared themselves to be the lost Lindbergh baby and another to be the czar of Russia. Minute changes of body position and tone of voice were the only physical indicators of a change in attitude or emotion. The simplicity of the setting made Mere Mortals one of my favorite because it let the words and actors speak the message without any overt distraction.
In both The Philadelphia and Sure Thing, I felt the believability and chemistry between the actors, that was so prevalent in the first piece, was missing at times. I enjoyed The Philadelphia for its unique idea that metaphysical states of being have equivalents with places, such as Cleveland being like death and in a philadelphia you never get what you want. But the two friends in the piece lacked a closeness in their interactions and the play missed a chance to increase the natural humor in the play.
I had a similar experience while watching Sure Thing. The two characters have a chance meeting and their conversation repeats itself whenever they hit a dead end- where normally their relationship would be stopped from developing. Each conversation restart is marked by the ding of a bell, so everyone knows the conversation is going back a bit. But they are both given a second chance. It is all in the timing and the word choice of each character. In this way the concept is really interesting and it was extremely entertaining to watch them repeat the same line until the other responded with an acceptable answer. It is the way we all wish we could meet people, with the guarantee its a sure thing. They did a very good job of jumping back and forth whenever they had to rewind and restart the last section of their conversation It was fast paced and snappy. But I missed the chemistry that could have been between them; true, they were playing strangers meeting for the first time but even as they got to know each other better, with many restarts, I did not believe the build up that finally led to them liking each other.
Another one of my favorites was Moby-Dude: Or, The Three Minute Whale. A solo farce, Mardheanna Md Yasin was animated and energetically dynamic in her performance. It was three minutes of her talking and accounting, in the stereotype of a surfer dude’s laid back manner, the tale of Moby-Dick. She stumbled a few times with the words in the middle but it was a very long piece and she recovered quickly. Her rendition was a highlight of the show.
There were three other pieces, each just as much fun as the others. The Universal Language was a riot of known and unknown languages, ultimately ending on an optimistic note for a global community which was portrayed by two dedicated and comedic actors. Honestly, I didn’t quite get Variations on the Death of Trotsky though the actors capitalized on the humorous moments with great effect and made it enjoyably entertaining all the same. The production ended with Time Flies which is a close up on the brief life of a mayfly. The actors had a familiar chemistry and were not afraid to embrace the awkward moments in the play but instead made the show all the more humorous for their fearless representation. Overall, “BEWARE the Ives of March” was an evening of good theater and good laughs that ensures I’ll be back for more farces by Ives next March!
