The New Testament and Helter Skelter
First Look Festival of New Plays presented by The Open Fist Theatre Company is a two month look at new works by a very diverse group of playwrights including Neil LaBute. His contribution to the festival are two one-act plays both taking place in a restaurant that examine the extreme events that life can take through mundane means.
The first is The New Testament, where the producer and writer of a new Broadway play are trying to recast and force out the original leading actor whom the writer feels is totally wrong for the role. The piece is directed by company member Bjorn Johnson and other than a few moments, captures the perfect tension of the work. His actors, Tim Banning as the writer, Benjamin Burdick as the producer and Peter James Smith as the actor, have a wonderful marry-go-round in the power struggle. The only thing missing in the piece is the sense of place, as they are in a public restaurant but often fight like they are in private which makes one wonder what the bubbling over tensions would have been like had this been captured.
Helter Skelter is the second work, directed by Neil LaBute himself. The story of this short is about a married couple with children, though it is never established how long they’ve been married, are on a routine Christmas holiday shopping trip. Over lunch, the wife, played by Kate Beahan, asks for the husband’s phone, played by Ron Eldard, and the drama that follows destroys their whole “sweet” life together. Without giving the almost obvious plot away, this one of the two pieces felt very heavy handed, whether it was the writing or the acting, it was hard to tell, but the plot twists could be seen from a mile off and the piece just never brought you into it. The two people were not someone you ever cared about, even if they do resemble people we know in our day to day lives going about their lives as if nothing changes till chaos interjects itself.
The festival is filled with wonderful and never before seen works and with this level of adventurism there going to be ups and downs. Check out the festival and its many wonderful works, you won’t be disappointed.