A Finale That Will Hopefully Be

The First Of Many Full Seasons

By Shannon Hicks

Newtown Cultural Arts Commission (NCAC) presented the season finale of its lunchtime theater presentations in collaboration with Play With Your Food last week and I for one hope that it was just that: just the finale of the first season. The three programs of 2009-10 — one each in December and February, and then last week’s offering — all followed a well-established pattern of 30 minutes for lunch, the performances, and, as time allowed, a question and answer session with the performers and directors.

It is hard to say whether the best part of the program is that it ends promptly at 1:30 (so that attendees can continue with their afternoon on schedule) or the fact that all of this is offered for $30 per presentation.

The actors involved are all professional and incredibly talented, many of whom appear courtesy of Actors Equity Association.

The selection of plays tended to lean toward humor, with appropriate moments of drama tossed in. The inaugural performance was Truman Capote’s A Christmas Story, while the second and third presentations were three short-short plays that followed a theme (February was “Love in the Afternoon,” and April was “Rites of Spring”), which also worked within the 90-minute Play With Your Food timeframe.

The lunch was always good — usually a selection of sandwiches, salad, and cookies, with coffee and water to drink — and provided by local companies Katherine’s Kitchen (December), Mona Lisa Restaurant (February), and the soon-to-launch Sal e Pepe Express (April).

The offerings for April not only celebrated the return of spring, but also highlighted contemporary playwrights. Joan Grant, Nadine Willig, Michael Habetz, Don Striano, and a half dozen uncredited actors (in the role of destructive, grazing deer) presented Mary Louise Wilson’s Deer Play, in which friends Mable (Grant) and Madge (Willig) realize their friendship is going in vastly different directions following Madge’s purchase of a country cottage and her newfound enthusiasm for gardening. Madge learns the heartbreak of losing precious plantings to deer, and has a strange encounter with a male deer (Striano).

In Lanford Wilson’s The Betrothal, Joslyn (Grant, in her second role of the afternoon) and Wasserman (Richard Leonard) find that being misunderstood outsiders in the world of competitive gardening can have unexpected results.

The finale last week was Frederick Stroppel’s Judgment Call, in which three baseball umpires — one entering the field (Leonard) and two veterans: Harvey, an arrogant hardhead (Striano), and Frank (Habetz), who is going through a crisis following a very bad call the previous season.

The finale was great fun. The actors once again became fully involved with their roles through slight costume changes and very little stage setting. The audience was nearly beside itself when the unnamed deer made their way through the seating area during the first play, and there was a lot of nodding and tittering during the third play when the men on stage went through their motions — and sound effects — as Major League Baseball’s ultimate judges.

Play With Your Food has brought quality theatrical writing and acting to Fairfield County communities since 2003 with full seasons in Westport, Greenwich, and Fairfield. It is my sincere hope that Newtown supports NCAC and Play With Your Food on a long-term basis.