At the beginning of “Relationships in Durango: Can We All Get Along?” actor-playwright Jeff Deitch simply answers a ringing phone. It’s Christmas, and a childhood friend is calling.
The seemingly innocent situation sets up an opening monologue. Talking with Eddie O’Connell, Deitch roughly outlines what will follow. He also offers the first bit of Jewish humor. Deitch tells O’Connell that Jews agree there’s something miraculous about Christmas: “Watching millions of people pay full retail is a miracle.”
Last Thursday at opening night, the joke got a good laugh. And people who saw Deitch’s May debut, “Lies, Shame, & Self-Medication,” may have anticipated more one-liners and funny predicaments. But Deitch’s new work is different in tone and intent. Familial and romantic conflicts radiate a seriousness that some audience members may have found confusing.
Expectations can be troublesome. And like any new theater work, it’s important to separate the play from the production.
The play: With its concentration on family and personal history, “Relationships in Durango” has a dark emotional undercurrent. “Will Power” centers on a mother-daughter power struggle; “Love Rules” looks at awkward, youthful efforts to make friends; “Contractual Relations” sprinkles sparse humor into a desperate affair; “Mine Field” employs less humor and more tension for another affair; “Open Heart” tackles big religious issues; and “New World,” the only reprise from last year’s production, imagines a dystopian future.
In each, Deitch deploys a lot of exposition. Every set up is important, but too much back-story results in telling, not showing. In addition, each piece has a reversal, suddenly or inexplicably resolving to a more positive note. Deitch knows how to ratchet up conflict. But too often a tense situation turns sugary without logic or preparation.
In “Will Power,” one character forcibly resolves an argument between two others. In the two-person dramas, a serious rift may be quickly repaired. For plays conceived in a realistic vein, these resolutions can seem false.
Tone in “Open Heart” shifts from social pleasantries to argument then drifts dangerously toward didacticism. Here, too, a sudden reversal sparks an uplifting ending – and one more Jewish joke. It felt good at performance, but the through line got lost.
Repeating “New World” underscored Deitch’s tendency to tell and not show. Two stoners smoke up a vision of the future with the help of a comic sprite. She foretells America’s dismal future by using props packed into a grocery cart. The work is essentially a dystopian lament. The argument and items are interesting, but it’s still a list.
The production: The performance of “New World” was as sleek and smooth as last year but much darker, despite Lisa Zwisler’s energetic performance as Siri. Zwisler is a natural comic and often gets a laugh in a walk-on. Her colleagues, Marc West and Eli Rosenbaum, also brought lightness to the piece, but darkness ran deep.
In “Love Rules,” West and Rosenbaum nicely contrasted two college students – one eager, the other blasé. Actors in the two “affair” plays – Corinthian Lorenzo and Hannah Mae Bernat, and KC Caimi and Deitch – quickly brought heated tensions to troubled relationships. In “Will Power,” Nor Porter-List raised the stakes of a family argument, while Maureen May convincingly played an embittered Rosa to Zwisler’s angry Marsha. May transformed into a younger, eager Christian lady opposite Brian McAleer’s kind but deeply angry Rabbi Goodman in “Open Heart.” The actors acquit themselves well, but one questions two directorial preferences – facing the audience more than relating to other players and strongly enunciating lines. The declamatory style of performance fits a didactic tone, but for realistic drama, it’s problematic.
Deitch’s second iteration of short plays is different and more serious than last year. He clearly has an ear for dialogue and subjects to last a lifetime. Next year, why not explore a full-length work?
jreynolds@durangoherald.com. Judith Reynolds is a Durango writer, art historian and arts journalist.
If you go
A reprise of “Relationships in Durango: Can We All Get Along?” written and directed by Jeffrey Deitch, will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Sept 26 at the Elks Club, 901 East Second Ave. Tickets $15. For information about tickets, call 261-1306.
