Boys & Girls review

Bare Theatre Review
Robert W. McDowell
February 24, 2010

"Boys And Girls" were a mixed bag of three short plays
Written by N.Y. And N.C. Contemporary Playwrights

Boys And Girls: Three Short Plays By Contemporary Playwrights, which Bare Theatre presented on Feb. 11-14 and 18-21 at Common Ground Theatre in Durham, NC, were a mixed bag.

"Burying Barbie," written by New York dramatist Christopher Dimond and directed by G. Todd Buker (a.k.a. Proxy), is a dark comedy about the terrible things that precocious seven-year-old Rachel Furman (Jessica Heironimus) and her imaginary friend Chuck (Richard Butner) do to her dolls, while her divorced mother Linda (Sarah Schmitt) gets more and more concerned. The hint that Chuck might be Rachel's absent father is not well developed.

"boygirlboygirl," written by New York playwright Jason Williamson and also directed by Todd Buker, is a strange story about a Boy (Matt Fields) and a Girl (Kelly Haas) who meet during a search for her lost dog. After he becomes obsessed with her, things take a sinister turn, with a mixed chorus (Jeff Buckner and Debbie Tullos) on hand to comment on what happens when the lonely Boy-turned-stalker invites himself into his sleeping victim's bedroom to give her a surprise wakeup call.

"Ask Him in the Morning," written and directed by Bare Theatre's resident director Carmen-maria Mandley, and staged with the help of assistant director Matthew Schedler and fight choreography by Heather J. Hackford, assisted by Jason Bailey, is the most ambitious -- and most repellant -- piece on the program. Its protagonist Gunnar (Loren Armitage) is a nasty piece of business -- a man who hates women and physically abuses, terrorizes, and even kills them. Gunnar is an unrepentant ladykiller, literally; and then he decides to play a sick game with the audience -- he will reenact his most grievous sins and the audience will pass judgment. If it's thumbs up, he will live. If it's thumbs down, he will blow his brains out.

Unfortunately for Gunnar, the woman Kate (Heather J. Hackford), whom he hires to impersonate his various victims, proves to be his nemesis. She is a worm who turns unexpectedly -- a fierce warrior with an Amazon's spirit who turns the tables on this serial rapist and murderer. Thanks to her intervention, his pretense of confessing his sins to the audience and promising that they can vote on whether he lives or dies becomes a fait accompli. Game Over!

Although none of these one-acts particularly appealed to me, it was a great pleasure to watch Heather Hackford work as she evolved from hapless victim into the reincarnation of "La Femme Nikita." Hackford is a fine comic actress, but she shifts gears here to become a female Terminator -- and a misogynist such as Gunnar's worst nightmare. It was a transformation worth the trip to Durham, and the time spent watching two other intermittently entertaining plays that never quite grabbed the audience by the throat like "Ask Him in the Morning" did.

SECOND OPINION: Feb. 17th Durham, NC INDEPENDENT WEEKLY review by Byron Woods (who awarded the show 3 of 5 stars): http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid:411274; and Feb. 16th Raleigh, NC NEWS & OBSERVER review by Roy C. Dicks: http://www.newsobserver.com/entertainment/arts/story/341060.html.

SHOW: http://www.baretheatre.org/next.html. PRESENTER: http://www.baretheatre.org/. VENUE: http://www.cgtheatre.com/.