Lamplighters Community Theater's "Summerfest 2008" features six short plays with a variety from the serious to the silly to the romantic.
I was 12 years old when my middle-aged parents bought twin beds. I thought that was the end of their marriage. They were married 57 years. Watching Robert Anderson's The Footsteps of Doves, under Mark Loveless' direction, brought back those ancient memories.
Middle-aged couple Harriet and George Porter (Pamela Fadden and Mark Loveless) are shopping for a new mattress. Two singles or one regular? Dimensions are important; their marriage is at risk..what will the outcome be?
Like every mattress store I've ever been in, there are two prices on each, and each always has a "sale" price. Enter the hyper salesman (Michael David Grulli) with his standard pitch. Finally, George wanders out of view and Harriet explores head and foot boards.
Enter Jill Hammond (Angie Doren), young, attractive, and recently divorced. She is luxuriating on the larger mattress. Poor brow-beaten George wanders back into the mattress section. What transpires has got to be seen. Leave it that George has a new lease on life. The joys of middle-age fantasies.
The Memory Book, starring Jonathan Dunn-Rankin and Timothy Carr as aging John and Joseph, is insightfully written by Jack Dyville with DJ Sullivan directing. Two classic and classy actors in a memorable piece with a surprise ending, in a not-to-be missed play.
Loretta Haas performs Row, Row, Row in verse, and Anna Mae/McDonalds under Ron Ray's direction. In the first, appearing in period costume complete with boa, she gives us an inspired rendition. In the latter, a delightful spoof of a certain fast food chain, she's a very western woman with an extremely strange tale.
Michael Dean Grulli, as a cowboy type-Rico, returns with Diego Parada, as Raul, a job hunter in Terence Burke's Taxco Mixto, directed by Nanci Hunter. Rico is loaded with big ideas and no common sense. Raul has some good ideas, common sense and a lack of funds. What transpires is delightful repartee between two accomplished actors. The end speech, which is in Spanish, is fortunately translated by the director for us mono-linguals.
Ending the evening are Ed and Ruth Eigner as Herbert and Muriel in Robert Anderson's totally outrageous, I'm Herbert. Mark Loveless directs. Herbert and Muriel, both in their third (if I counted right) marriage, getting up in years, have a wee problem with memory, names, dates, places -- well, you get the story.
As one who does forget names, I felt compassion with the two. Of course, forgetting the name of your spouse is a bit much. I guarantee that the audience did not forget for a moment to laugh.
