The marquee outside the Sunflower Theatre in Cortez said it all: “Shorts & Briefs. No, not underwear.”
Last weekend, the town’s Sunflower Troupe gave three performances of six new plays in its beautiful, 105-seat theater. A stunning and functional renovation of a 1908 historic building, Sunflower Theatre opened in 2015. It has a handsome multipurpose performance space with a high-arched proscenium stage, a professional sound and light system, plus comfortable ground-floor and balcony seating.
Producer Kim Welty welcomed the sell-out crowd Sunday by announcing the second annual shorts festival. The theme this year has been “a window,” which the playwrights were to incorporate into the action of their 15-minute plays. Actor-designer Abraham Proffitt’s program cover showed a window opening onto a Southwestern landscape with sunflowers aplenty.
Six finalists offered their plays in a two-act format with a 15-minute intermission. Four directors, Heidi Brugger, Hattie Miller, Silvia Fleitz and Mo Murray, shaped the fully-staged performances with solid technical assistance from Brynn Weber and costumes by Marie Chiarizia and her team.
The window theme took six different turns; only two were fully integrated into content and action.
The festival opened with Durango playwright Joyce Fontana’s new work: “Simply Fantastical.” The title expressed the play’s central discovery: the ability to participate in an ancient ritual, viewing the Spring Equinox, even in a metropolis like New York City. Two Manhattanites (convincingly played by Proffitt and Amorina Martinez) looked through an imaginary window into the audience and a brilliant sunrise illuminated their faces. Tech director Weber made that moment memorable by controlling a warm fade-up-and-out light. Director Brugger used the concept of breaking the fourth wall to dramatic effect. It was the most theatrical stage image of the festival.
Other uses of the window theme seemed to be afterthoughts, literally looking through a prop window into a rainy evening. In one case, an empty picture frame substituted for the idea of a window. Only Durangoan Mark Chapman’s “The Window” fully used the theme. His play centered on the concept of insiders and outsiders. Introverted Andy (ably portrayed by Sam Eggenhuizen) confronts extroverted Roberta (an ebullient Caro Gomez). An unlikely romance blossoms until the playwright speeds forward with plot surprises delivered with stop-action, comedic drop spots.
Wendy Watkins’ (Dolores) “The Acceptarian,” centered on a dinner brimming with intergenerational differences. Vicki Meagher’s (Albuquerque) “Two Crones” reunited sisters after a long hiatus because of a descent into homelessness. In both, the exploration of contemporary issues had resonance, but the window motif seemed artificial and irrelevant.
Alisa Krakel’s (Dolores) “The Eternal Optimist,” slipped into a three-act structure with multiple settings, too many ideas and one irrelevant window. It was the longest work on the program, after one blackout, the audience seemed to think it had ended.
Edward DeBuvitz’s (Albuquerque) “Jack and Jill and Robin,” closed the show with a lighthearted mashup of fairy tales. Multiple scenes mingled stories, and the actors sustained a consistent comedic tone throughout. It was the perfect conclusion to an entertaining afternoon.
Judith Reynolds is an arts journalist and member of the American Theatre Critics Association.
