6 Plays In Search Of A Dramaturge . . .
Written and Directed by Duncan Pflaster
Spotlight-On Fall Festival at Raw Space - Review by Louis Lopardi - 10/29/02
When Dolly The Sheep became front page news, an Internet periodical proclaimed :"Why clone sheep? They already look alike." The sinister reality of course is more devious. We are already drinking milk from clones of top-producing cows. And, as this play underscores, human cloning offers the possibility of rejection-free organs - (the only possibility, unless voters demand that government stop interfering with stem-cell research).
This "comic science-fiction lesbian drama" raises some thorny issues in the course of its grueling hour and three-quarters, but only one of the six facets is fairly dealt with: The title clones are being raised for their organs, thence to be destroyed. A (lesbian) educator is hired to teach them just enough language ability to legally consent to their fate. The adorable clones inhabited the bodies of Jett Reed Canary and Slade Decker, who also played their "parents", switching roles and personas with ease.
Clara Barton Green played the suitably understated educator who confronts the manager (Jason Specland in a meaty comic role as the grasping corporate boss, supported by the powerful Kathleen Margo Collins). Her partner - convincingly played by Rebecca Rosen - is pregnant from a gay sperm-donor neighbor (tight and concise Marc Geller, supported by Joe MacDougall). There was clearly a large dramatic talent lurking within many in the cast, but it was not helped to the surface.
The overlong production lurched through fourteen scenes - thirteen cumbersome set changes - necessitated by a structure based not on theatre but sitcom and video. The cast was so frazzled by the set changes they had difficulty regaining focus for each new scene. A strong director could have reshaped this morass somewhat; better to have structured it from the outset as a stage play since that presumably was the performance venue. It could then easily be presented with two unit-sets.
The Stage Manager, Alexandra Finger, deserves a medal. An effervescent and perfect Sound Design, also by Duncan Pflaster, did its best to keep things moving. Custer Dannflap did very admirably with a truly terrible repertory lighting plot which crippled all three theatres in the festival.