"Banyan Becoming" held what was billed as its second annual "Workshop Productions of New Plays" at the Cook Theater in the FSU Center for the Performing Arts in Sarasota. But the second of three plays, Karen Zacarias' Legacy of Light, was not new. By the time it reached Banyan, it had received full productions not just in the Sarasota area. It had also won a Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award.
It appeared on April 19, 2010, directed by Carole Kleinberg, who is Banyan's Artistic Director. The author was not present, but comments were expressed after the presentation and, presumably, written ones were forwarded to the author.
Legacy of Light was read by Seva Anthony, Petrus Antonius, and Kevin Rose as 18th Century characters. Opposite them on stage, portraying moderns, were KT Curran, Katherine Michelle Tanner and Kip Taisey. Two women in separate times struggle to pursue and promulgate the latest discoveries and queries of physics, while grappling with the demands of motherhood. The older, French characters are historical in this feminist drama.
The "Banyan Becoming" readings began with Mark E. Leib's, Four Middle-Aged Jewish Men Discuss Love, Death, and the Inescapable Presence of God. Its title tells its point, taken at a reunion of best friends who roomed together as students 30 years previously. Cal (Dan Bright), about to be married for the third time, leads his friends in discussion on the titled subjects. Symbolically, as well as actually coming from the corners of the country to its center, they include a very sexually active lawyer, a doctor interested in physics, and a businessman who has returned to practicing Orthodox Judaism after the death of his son. The men bare and try to justify their feelings and argue just before the rehearsal dinner of Cal, now a professor of literature and sometime poet. As the friends, Steve DuMouchel, Bill Karnovsky, and Paul Potenza were directed, along with Bright, by Van Huff in the April 13 reading.
Last in the series, April 26, the one-person Boss Tom! by Jack Gilhooley was directed by Carole Kleinberg. Dan Higgs gave a sustained performance, seldom on book, as Tom Pendergast. Speaking just after his release from a year in federal prison, the notorious politician Tom Pendergast finds his Kansas City mansion abandoned by his wife and children. Both his sharp politics and his growing mental slack-off become clear as he traces his empire-building career. Unnecessary slides detract more than enhance Tom's account of past glories and infamous conduct. He tries to make contact with bookies to whom he lost a fortune. He makes clear his dislike of F.D.R. but connects, or thinks he does, with his protege Harry Truman and is unsure of former Democratic party allies. Audience members felt they learned from the bio-drama, they reported.
The original purpose of "Banyan Becoming" was to help Florida writers, especially locals, develop their plays when near the point of production. Best liked were to be considered for full presentations later. None of last year's plays received subsequent staging by Banyan. The latest readings were sponsored by the Banyan Theater Guild.
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