If you missed out on the ’10 Minute Play Festival’ then here’s quick rundown on a few plays that entertained, and deserve acknowledgment for their well written/witty script as well as some exceptional acting by our fellow Rio Hondo students.
To kick things off we have ‘Wanderlust,’ a story about a teen panicking as he’s rejected, letter by letter, from the the universities and colleges that he applied for. Luckily, he has a very supporting and reassuring boyfriend (yes, he’s gay) by his side. His mother, on the other hand, is very overprotective of him and somewhat frowns upon his homosexuality. In the end, he’s happy to know that his number one college pick accepted him, but angrily leaves his mother after she smacks him in the face during an escalating argument. The mother instantly regrets her action, and ends the scene with a monologue depicting how sorry and caring she is of her son, the way any loving mother would. This short story definitely can make an audience member reflect on a few aspects of thier own life.
The next quipping story, ‘Just Be Frank’ stars Charlene, a beautiful woman working in an office environment who shows up in a pretty pink dress in hopes to get a promotion from her boss. Although her timid co-worker is worried for her, Charlene is confident that her plan will succeed. Unfortunately, another co-worker, along with the boss and the boss’s secretary, don’t respect her in the slightest. She ends up receiving countless witty insults from each one of them, realizing how little the office thinks of her. This play examines and expands an aspect of “Dress for Success” with a well written script and fast dialogue. It can also be conjured that a love/hate relationship with Charlene, pitying her yet, at the same time, emphasizing with her.
The last play I’ll be describing is ‘Pie Man.’ This unorthodox production features a man that, is in fact, a pie: his skin is crust, his blood is raspberry jelly and people want to eat him. The audience is to believe he’s awoken after his baking period and he’s now wandering about in a desert. He meets a strange, funny fellow by the name of Chompsky (hint hint) who explains to him that the nearby town is starving and that he can feed the people. The woman who baked him, Miss Marie, is the antagonist in this story and wants Pie Man for herself. Soon after discovering, from Miss Marie and Chompsky, that a Cake Boy has been feeding the people this entire time but is running out, Pie Man sets out to rescue him. The situation turns out to be a trap, and our hero is captured by Miss Marie, ending the play. And even though the end wasn’t a happy one, the rest of the story was, with Chompsky as, by far, thee best character out of all the plays, and he completely stole the show. This lovable character will be remembered weeks to come.
