Summer Shorts: Series A ***

59E59 Theater is once again hosting the Summer Shorts Festival of New American Short Plays. Series A features works by Neil LaBute (most recently The Way We Get By), Vickie Ramirez and Matthew Lopez (The Whipping Man). 

LaBute’s 10K  presents two joggers, a woman (Clea Alsip) and a man (J.J. Kandel), who are certainly among the fittest actors on a New York stage. Although they are jogging for almost the entire play, their bodies and their voices show no signs of fatigue. They meet on their daily run in a nature reserve and carry on a conversation that gradually grows more personal and leads them to reveal their fantasies. It’s a minor work that is superbly realized. The playwright directed.

Glenburn 12 WP by Ramirez is the evening’s weak point. Troy (Tre Davis), a young black man who has been at an anti-racism protest at Grand Central Terminal, enters a nearby Irish pub to have a beer. The bartender is unaccountably absent. He is soon joined by Roberta (Tanis Parenteau), a woman in her 30s who is a regular at the bar and who turns out to be part Native American. She tries to persuade him to have a drink, but he is reluctant to without the bartender there. She provokes him into a conversation and offers to pay for his drinks. When she goes down to the cellar allegedly to see if the bartender is there, she returns with a bottle of the very expensive Scotch for which the play is named. After a couple of drinks, she reveals a dark secret, which seemed completely implausible. The actors did their best with poorly written characters. Mel Haney directed.

The Sentinels by Lopez introduces us to three 9/11 widows whose husbands worked for the same firm and who meet at a coffee shop near ground zero every year. Alice’s (Meg Gibson) husband was the company’s founder. The acerbic Christa (Kellie Overbey) was married to an important executive there. Kelly’s (Michelle Beck) husband was a recent hire. Zuzanna Szadkowski is the waitress. The gimmick is that the story is told backwards starting in 2011 and proceeding in short scenes back to 2000. The concept is better than the execution. The short scenes don’t really build in intensity. The cast was good. The flatness seemed more in the writing than in Stephen Brackett’s direction.

Rebecca Lord-Surratt’s set design transformed nicely between locations. Dede Ayite’s costumes were apt. The evening was pleasant but not memorable. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes, no intermission.

The Whipping Man ***

Manhattan Theatre Club is presenting the New York premiere of Matthew Lopez's historical drama on its City Center stage. The premise that Lopez asks us to accept -- that the household slaves in a Jewish household in Richmond practiced Judaism -- is not totally implausible: in Biblical times, Jews encouraged their slaves to convert and circumcised the males whether or not they converted. Lopez takes the coincidence that the Confederate surrender occurred one day before the beginning of Passover and runs with it to spin an interesting tale of deceit, betrayal and mutual dependence that culminates in a seder. Caleb DeLeon (Jay Wilkinson), the Jewish family's son, is a seriously wounded Confederate officer who returns from the war to find  his home looted, partially destroyed and deserted except for the family's longtime servant Simon (Andre Braugher). The two are soon joined by John (Andre Holland), a former slave Caleb's age with a knack for trouble. At Simon's suggestion, they hold a seder, during which they read and discuss verses about the nature of slavery and freedom.  At the seder, secrets are revealed that forever alter their ties. The play has some awkward moments, but was consistently interesting. The acting was good and Doug Hughes's direction was smooth. John Lee Beatty's set and Ben Stanton's lighting were grimly effective, although I could have done without the symbolic lightning, thunder and rain that never cease.Warning: the first scene is extremely grisly.