Orange Coast College’s One-Acts run the gamut of style

Tom Titus

Those creative students at Orange Coast College are at it again,

writing and directing their own plays at OCC’s Summer One-Act

Festival -- in their own words, “A brilliant selection of one-act

plays produced entirely by the talented members of the OCC Repertory

Theater Company.”

“Brilliant” might not be the first adjective that comes to mind

upon viewing them, but “provocative,” “interesting” and “unusual”

certainly apply to the 10 original pieces in the two-weekend program.

First out of the box on Saturday was “Box,” an allegorical drama

by Brian Munce. Unlike the other selections, it comes completely

devoid of acting or backstage credits in the program.

The play centers on a troubled teenage girl, harangued by her

parents (represented as shadow puppets) and driven to the verge of

suicide. When a hooded stranger hands her a small box, our modern-day

Pandora opens it to release all the forces of hell. There’s a

heavy-handed religious message here as well.

Things turn much lighter in Don Crosby’s romantic comedy “Never

Kiss on a Park Bench,” which he also directs. Here Sean Engard,

preparing to propose to his girlfriend, meets the fetching Emily Rued

in the park and finds he has much more in common with her than with

his intended (Lauren Kushin). It’s lightweight stuff, but

entertaining nonetheless.

Christopher Durang has long been the patron saint of OCC drama

students. His influence is heavily felt in student Chris Secor’s

latest work, titled “I Never Thought I’d Consider Cannibalism a

Viable Option.” Preening ambition, lepers (yes, lepers) and oceanic

turmoil entwine themselves in this blackest of black comedies with

Casey Colliflower shining as an egocentric do-gooder and

playwright-director Secor also impressing. It’s an extended exercise

in the bizarre, which isn’t above gimmicky treatment of characters’

names -- the lepers are called Stoppard and Goethe (Stop and Go for

short).

You’ll get a buzz out of “Time Flies,” by David Ives, in which the

play’s two characters are mayflies acting out the only day allotted

to them on earth. Lauren Kushin, who also directs, and Frank

Miyashiro enact the winged creatures and the puns fly thick and fast.

Another lightweight charmer enriched by two inventive performances.

Sexual identity and human needs are at the core of “The System of

Wants,” written and directed by Sean F. Gray, the most powerfully

moving entry of the evening. Vincent C. Torres Jr. portrays a gay

youth with a crush on another guy (the straight Ryan W. Gray) whose

best friend (Katie McGuire) is hopelessly in love with him. Andrew

Vondershmitt completes the foursome, thrown together at a cast party

for “Camelot,” and it’s heavy stuff -- a bit overextended, but moving

nevertheless.

Secor returns in the second increment of playlets with an even

stranger piece titled “Stop My Insanity,” directed by Frank

Miyashiro. Here a young girl (Lauren Kushin) must live with her

crazy, sadistic aunt (Isabella Melo) after her father’s death in an

exercise in satiric, bordering on satanic, futility. Secor has

crafted some impressive works for OCC, but this one isn’t among them.

“Date With a Stranger,” by Cherie Vogelstein, gives the absurdist

skills of actors Angel Correa and Angela Lopez a workout as the pair

meet in a cafe and proceed to intellectually disembowel one another.

Lopez in particular attacks her schizo character with relish.

In David Ives’ “Foreplay,” three couples engage in a game of

miniature golf, although you get the impression the guy in all three

segments, although presented simultaneously, is the same fellow using

similar lines on three ladies. Derek Wiley, David Reider and John

Carlos McMaster share the Chuck character (labeled I, II and III),

while Chanel Panagiotopoulos, Erin Ainsworth and Jenny Maurer fend

off their advances under Emily Rued’s direction.

Office romance is the theme of “Courting Prometheus,” by Charles

Forbes, with the ubiquitous Angela Lopez back for a

cubicle-to-cubicle encounter with Vincent Torres. The switch here is

these two already have made it once, and he’s campaigning for a

rematch. Cute.

Finally, we have Andrew Vonderschmitt’s extended tear-jerker

“Charles Bronson and Other Men of Mettle,” in which Frank (Ryan Gray)

and Chad (Vincent Torres) discuss Frank’s impending date with a

young, HIV-positive lady (Katie McGuire) whom Chad realizes, to his

horror, he’s already slept with. Sean Gray has a moving cameo as a

priest in this succession of splendidly presented monologues that

delve into the psyches of each character.

The 10 playlets continue this weekend in pretty much reverse order

tonight through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at both 2 and 7 p.m.

It’s all new material, and much of it quite involving.

* TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Daily Pilot. His

reviews appear Thursdays and Saturdays.