THIRDeYE Festival

The University of California Davis Department of Theater and Dance is presenting its annual THIRDeYE Theater Festival, showcasing the work of three talented student playwrights and three student directors at the Wyatt Pavilion Theater, through January 27th.

The plays are written in various UC Davis playwriting and English classes, some taught by Jade McCutcheon, reprising her successful 2007 role as Artistic Director for the festival.

Kellie Raines, who wrote last year’s delightful “Saving Trophies,” is back for her second THIRDeYE experience. This time it’s “Miracle Fish,” directed by Jason Masino, and inspired by a story from the Internet about a pair of men in London who found a fish they claimed had the word “Allah” on it. The men put it on display and people came to view the fish, nicknamed “Miracle Fish.” From this Raines formed the central theme of her play which is how we often look for answers or signs in objects and ephemera that are man made.

Heidi Kendrick is Samira, an aspiring writer suffering from writer’s block and wracked with guilt over an issue which is not revealed until midway through the play. She seeks guidance from a “Magic Eight Ball” (“Should I have told him no?”) Kendrick shines in this piece, nicely conveying her frustration and her reliance on outside objects to give her a sign that will help her make major life decisions.

Thomas (Kevin Ganger), with whom we assume she is romantically involved, arrives with his friend Matt (Roth Wiedrick). The men had been at a club and on their return home during a big storm Thomas asserts it began raining fish. A fish with the likeness of Jesus on it landed on their car windshield and the men plan to put it up for auction on eBay and become rich.

While Matt and Thomas are in the bedroom watching the bids on eBay rise, Samira’s former boyfriend, Steven (Mark Ferrando) arrives. Steven apparently dumped Samira for his Uruguayan boyfriend, Eluid (Nathan Lessa). Revelations are made, decisions are made, and Samira finds her inspiration in an unlikely place.

Scenic design of Samira’s apartment by Kelsey Nix, is particularly nice.

I didn’t feel nearly as bad during intermission following the second play, “Brigid’s Reign,” by John Crosthwaite (directed by Cary Babka), when a large group of people sitting next to me huddled and compared notes, trying to figure out what the play was about. I had difficulty following it myself. While the 8-member cast is strong, the combination of their Irish accents, Wyatt acoustics, and my seat on the side of the stage rather than in front made it difficult to catch large parts of the dialog, which made it nearly impossible to follow the plot.

The play was inspired by testimonies and legends surrounding the Troubles of Northern Ireland from the late 1960's to the mid 1990's. Seannan (Daniel Reano-Koven) loses his wife (Gia Battista) and daughter Brigid (Bridgette Davis) as a result of the violent Irish conflict. Reano-Koven brings an intensity to the role which underscores the pain of his loss, the depth of his guilt, and the anger which fuels the conflict that rages within him.

Seannan and his friend Jared (Bryan Marcus Pham, who has one of the best of the Irish accents)) come to America to stay with relatives. Katie Hulse gives a wonderful performance as Casey, the mother of the transplanted Irish-American family. Cory McDaniel, Ulysees [sic] Morazon and JT Reece are Casey’s sons. "Secrets drive the family apart, but experience brings them closer," says the playwright.

What do the ghosts (the afterlife in general having a huge impact on the play) have to say about the outcome of the living? I’m not exactly sure–and my seatmates at Wyatt Pavilion weren’t sure either!

“Ghost, Bathtub and Windmill,” a comedy by Elise Kane (who appears to have a particular love for bathtubs, as her performance art piece last year was entitled “The Bathtub Experiment”) was directed by Daniel Guttenberg,

Its nine-member cast is headed by Figg (Brian McFadden) and Czewski (Erin Cookston), the ghost of a Polish Holocaust victim, now working as a costumer in a New York theater. McFadden is wonderfully droll and Cookston gives a gentle dignity to the ghost of this little costumer.

Matt Moore is also quite funny as Alastair and Kelly Fleischman sparkles as the diva, Echo. Others in this excellent cast include Geoffry Jenson as Clifford, Alison Stevenson as Minnie, and Stephanie Hankinson, Cody Messick and Daniel Storrow as Producers.

The bathtub features prominently and is the location for some of the funnier bits of physical comedy.

THIRDeYE Theater Festival has once again shown us that talent is alive and vibrant at the Department of Theater and Drama!

THIRDeYE Theatre Festival

The annual THIRDeYE Theatre Festival [sic], presented by the UC Davis Department of Theater and Dance, features three new plays by three undergraduate playwrights: Rachel Skytt, Natasha Tavakoli, and Kellie Raines. All three plays will be performed on each night of the festival, which will continue January 25-28 in Wyatt Pavilion Theater.

The plays are created in the Playwriting and English courses at UC Davis and the actors, designers, stage managers, and crew are all undergraduates, many performing their role or task for the first time.

The evening opens with “Over the Line,” by Natasha Tavakoli, directed by Amy Kronzer. While all the actors throughout the evening were excellent and I would be hard pressed to find a weak link anywhere, this particular play had some of the strongest performances. It is unfortunate that the script itself had the most problems.

Tavakoli set out to create a political drama which dealt with issues of immigration, relationships between parents and children, and between lovers, and a myriad of topics which, crammed together into a short one-act piece became sensory overload. There was no time for development of relationships or completion of scenes. Meals are served, eaten (or not eaten) in one bite and dishes immediately removed from the table. Parents arrive from Mexico, after a harrowing trip across the border to the home of a daughter they have not seen for years and the mother has no time for pleasantries; she only wants to go to bed. The Mexican mother emotionally speaks to her husband, complaining that he refuses to answer her in English.

Despite the problems with the story itself, this play had wonderful performances, particularly from Alma Ruelas, as Maria, the heroine of the piece, who may have given the strongest performance of the night. Her boyfriend Eli was played by Mike Yost, who likewise turned in a solid performance.

Matthew Moore’s performance as Eli’s father, Hank, was good, but his character was less believable because he looked more like Eli’s renegade brother than his father, a danger when all members of the cast are roughly the same age.

Christina Moore gave a sympathetic performance as Maria’s mother, Esperanza.

The second play was “Saving Trophies,” by Kellie Y. Raines, directed by Orion Al-Shamma-Jones. As a person who saves “things” in excess, I found I could relate to this story about a Sofia (Melanie Levy) who has a passion for collecting, cleaning, and displaying old trophies. “It’s about the way we all give pieces of ourselves to each other in small moments. It's in the pieces that we try to find something whole, something worth saving,” explains the author.

Levy’s seemingly strong performance was marred by her lack of projection so that too many of her lines, and thus the plot points, were lost, which is a shame because I was most impressed with her involvement with the character, a woman with a broken heart filling the space left by her former boyfriend with these trophies that she incessantly polishes.

Carolyn Hodson had no projection problems as Lozzie, Sofia’s lesbian friend who tries to make Sofia understand that she needs to get out into the world and live her life. Lozzie is that very rare character, an incapable lesbian. When Ken (Daniel Reano-Koven [Derrick--your computer won’t pick it up in an e-mail but the “n” in Reano should have a tilde over it]), a street person who has come into the shop where Sofia is polishing her trophies, collapses, it is Lozzie who doesn’t know what to do and leaves Sofia to handle the situation.

Rounding out the evening was “Baetylus” by Rachel Skytt, directed by Travis Dukelow. The death of a classmate was Skytt’s inspiration for this play about Felix (Daniel Hakim) whose fiancee Annabelle (Rebecca Backer) is the victim of a drive-by shooting. Hakim skillfully handles the conflicting emotions of a man trying to find meaning in life and struggling with his desire to hang onto the past and his growing affection for Babette (Jessica Herman). “If you don’t have a ‘now,’ you will never have any more ‘pasts,’” Babette tells him.

Shea McWhorter is delightfully ditzy as Mrs. Allen, an old woman mourning the loss of her beloved dog. The believability of the character is due as much to the costume design of Jennifer McEwen as the acting ability of McWhorter.

Jade McCutcheon is Artistic Director for this year’s festival. Scenic designers are Sam Hardie (Baetylus), Chris Lee (Saving Trophies) and Cary Babka (Over the Line), each of whom creates a pleasant environment, with Babka’s apartment particularly lovely.