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When first conceived and produced, David Ives' group of six short plays were originally presented in tiny cabaret settings, and the scripts reflect this fact. All of them are two or three person plays that are more about the wittiness of the text than the grandeur of the setting. Whether they take place in a trendy cafe, a small office, or a research laboratory, the plays use the funny and sharp dialogue and simplified but recognizable characters to make their dramatic movement rather than depending on many different locations and surroundings.
Actor's Theatre of Phoenix has taken these intimate cabaret pieces and added a larger-than-life visual element to their presentation. Director Matthew Wiener has over-produced the six mini-plays, bringing in brilliant scene and lighting effects which almost threaten to overwhelm the clever dialogue and off-kilter interactions within. Jeff Thomson's scenic design and Paul Black's lighting were sleekly ultra-modern and grandiose, which used the large space of the stage well, but went against the basic coziness implied by the plays. Despite this unwarranted grandification, the talented cast and urbane script are still able to offer the hilarious absurdities that make these plays such a delight to watch in the first place.
The six plays start off as simple jokes that become more elaborate as they are spun. One play, "Sure Thing," is about a couple's difficulties in making a connection on their first meeting. It goes through several missed opportunities until they finally say the right things to each other. Another piece, "Variations on the Death of Trotsky," presents the famed socialist leader during the hours after he has been mortally struck in the head with a mountain climber's ax. Even more off the wall is the play "Words, Words Words," which presents the dialogue between three monkeys, Kafka, Milton and Swift, as they are locked in a room together with typewriters until they are able to type the entire script of Hamlet.
Actors Matthew Mazuroski, Linda DeArmond and Jared Sakren present the myriad of off-the-wall characters with much energy and skill. They are readily able to transform from witty urbanites to experimental monkeys to wall flowers, and rarely miss a beat. While Mr. Mazuroski and Mr. Sakren offer quite malleable presentations from one scene to the next, Ms. DeArmond's performance did tend to be a bit more on the one-note level, and not quite as varied as the others; this, though, did not profoundly affect the overall enjoyment of the show.
Another small weakness to an otherwise fine evening came from the pacing of the some of the plays, which is an almost unavoidable problem for presentations of these scripts. The halting and staccato presentation of Mr. Mazuroski and Ms. DeArmond in "Sure Thing" is necessarily created within the script itself, since a bell rings each time one of the two says something that would potentially end the conversation, but the actors rushed the scene a bit too much, losing some of their limited characterization in the process. Also a bit rushed were Mr. Sakren and Ms. DeArmond in the play "The Universal Language," where a painfully shy woman with a stutter comes to a small office to learn a gibberish-like language in an attempt to find her true voice. The play has some textual gems, as the new language being taught contains many puns, but the speed of its presentation meant that a few of them were lost on the audience.
ATOP often presents theatre pieces that would otherwise rarely be seen in the valley. The only concern is the overproduction of such pieces in an attempt to justify the higher prices necessary to play at the Herberger Theatre. "All in the Timing" is a wonderful show, and ATOP's version is worth seeing, but would probably have been better presented in a space less than half the size. Once past the techno lights and sets, it's easy to find the clever text within.
Production Details:
"All in the Timing" by David Ives
Actor's Theatre of Phoenix
Herberger Theatre (Stage West), Phoenix
253-6701
October 12th-November 3, 1996
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