Americans’ adulation of the rich and famous – Hollywood celebrities, A-listers, sports stars, etc. – takes a quirky turn in Milwaukee’s Pink Banana Theater Co.’s one-act play festival. In the five productions that run a total of about two hours, audiences are allowed to see the risks, as well as the rewards, that celebrities face.
To no one’s surprise, the celebrities’ issues are much like our own. This year’s theme is superheroes, so these “celebrities” are actually fictionalized superheroes. But like us, they deal with depression, guilt, loneliness, fatigue, aging, etc. The evening’s first piece takes place in a superheroes’ support group, which starts with a moderator’s spoof on the Alcoholics Anonymous pledge.
Andrew Rosdail’s We Were Only Henchmen is the line-up’s most successful play. In it, a caped Captain Superior (Josh Krause) shares his frustrations with a homeless man (JJ Gatesman) he meets in a dark alley. The superhero laments that he can’t keep the bad guys in jail. “Prison is practically a revolving door,” he says. Taking his frustration to another level, Captain Superior snaps under the pressure. He kills the homeless man, while a pair of hired henchmen (Samantha Martinson and David Rothrock) look on from their hiding place nearby.
Earlier, the two henchmen commiserate about their own working conditions, as wittily directed by Rebecca Segal. Despite the play occasionally veering into slapstick, Segal keeps things from going over the top. After griping about her work, the female “henchman” mutters, “maybe I should go back to being a waitress at Pizza Hut.”
With one exception, the other dramatic efforts are more successful in concept than in execution. The most poignant of the five short plays is Secret Origin, in which a young man (Rothrock) tries to make sense of his parents’ death. His search leads him to the conclusion that he, like Superman, Batman, and other “orphaned” superheroes, must be destined to inherit super powers. Isolated and depressed, he holes up in his apartment. The arrival of a caring friend (Kara Penrose) gently nudges him toward a firmer grip on reality. The play, written by Harry Hoeffler-Bell, has clever moments. But despite the talented performances, the script doesn’t add up to anything special.
The evening’s final play is led by a crusader called the “Black Cat,” who tries to foil an evil plot by “the Rat.” In this play by Sam Sherman, the Cat is assisted by two bumbling detectives, who appear later as a pair of the Rat’s Russian bodyguards. Danny Rockey, a tall, trim young man who plays the Cat, shows enough comic ingenuity to make his character a memorable one. His signature gestures and creed (which consist of a series of hisses, growls and meows) are nicely delivered.
While the Cat occasionally prowls around on all-fours to detect clues, it gives the detectives time to make conversation. Joe Widen (as a detective/bodyguard) doesn’t get much of a chance to go beyond the limitations of his cartoonish character. But he delivers his lines in a dead-serious tone, reminiscent of the old TV show, “Car 54, Where Are You?”
Pink Banana is to be applauded for bringing a group of talented, young, local performers into the spotlight. One hopes that a new element added to the one-act festival this year – actors appearing in more than one play – will continue, as it works very well in this context.
