Jefferson Ensemble, formed less than two years ago in Louisville, is currently presenting three one-act plays under the Kinks, Shrinks and Red Inks! title. With these three shows tailored to their particular talents, the group's fine actors can really strut their stuff. Local playwright Elaine T. Hackett's A Clash of Invitations is the lengthiest and most satisfying of the three. The tried-and-true comedy plot of the boss and his spouse coming to dinner at the home of a nervous yes-man seeking promotion gets a good workover, along with a few surprising twists, in Hackett's witty script. While dashing around to help husband Howard (Christopher Cone) set the proper stage for hosting his tyrannical employer (Michael S. Gaither), wife Maggie Crenshaw (Glenn Whitelaw) must cope with a murderous toothache that she tries to drown with vodka or any other liquor.
Whitelaw, with her Julie Harris/Gwen Verdon/Shirley MacLaine voice and looks, is marvelous as her tipsiness increases, and she lets loose with whatever comes into her head about the guests (there are four of them, including two old college chums who turn up rather unexpectedly while passing through town). In her adorably scattered way, Whitelaw holds center stage and never misses a beat. When the dinner burns and the Crenshaws send out for Chinese food as a replacement, director Dennis Stilger's amusing touch is to have the cast dance the bossa nova instead of doing a blackout prior to a scene change. And Stilger, in Chinese garb, appears at the door with the food order as the audience roars.
A second local writer, john-peter lebangood (he prefers lowercase, a la e.e.cummings) contributes Red Tape, the evening's final offering and its shortest. Again, despite the cliche situation of a man (Stilger) trying to explain to a dense IRS employee (Mark Dawson Sullivan) who does his job according to "the manual," that he is not dead, the piece is loaded with laughs, many of them due to the timing, body language and expert delivery of Stilger and Sullivan, directed by Whitelaw.
Sandwiched between works of the two Louisville playwrights is Suppressed Desires, a 1915 play by the infrequently produced Susan Glaspell and her husband, George Cram Cook (with Eugene O'Neill they founded the influential Provincetown Players). Glaspell's trifle, directed by Jerry Winters, features a wife (Whitelaw) obsessed with psychoanalysis, something fairly revolutionary at the time of the play. Her sister(Kim Holton) and her husband (Stilger) fall under the spell of her fixation, but the canny husband finds a way to turn the tables and bring her backdown to earth.
