InfantryPotomacStgs

Infantry Monologues Review

Potomac Stages

July 7 - 24, 2005

Infantry Monologues

Reviewed July 9
Running time 2:00 - one intermission
Price range: $12 - $15
The world premiere of three one-act/one-performer pieces

The brand new "Meat and Potato Theatre Company" gets off to an incredibly strong start with the first of the three short solo pieces by its founder, actor/playwright/director Tobin Atkinson. "Lead with your strength" is a time-honored dictum but it does place a great burden on what comes afterwards. Here the first one-act/one-actor piece is so strong it sets up expectations for the second and third which aren't quite fulfilled. Still, each is an interesting piece on its own and the cumulative effect is satisfying, in part due to the polished performances by the three member cast.

Storyline: Three separate solo performance pieces include 1) The interrogation of a bloody man who may have done something horrible but who builds a case for being released to do again what is necessary for some unspecified security reason. 2) The pledge by a battlefield medic to do what it takes to make sure the rape of her colleague isn't covered up. 3) The testimony of the target of an inquiry under terms of extraordinary powers assumed by the government in the wake of perceived extraordinary dangers.

The monologues are stand-alone pieces but Atkinson carries a single thread of relevance to today's post 9/11 world seen by some as security conscious and others as security obsessed. His texts and his direction are clearly intended to sound warnings, giving audiences something to mull over as they struggle to make sense out of material that leaves a great deal unanswered. As a playwright, he provides words that are sharp and capable of calling up specific pictures of events imagined or actual. However, his three characters share a common vocabulary without distinctive characteristics. It seems, therefore, that all three are speaking in the voice of the author.

Atkinson is the performer in the first monologue and it is partially the intensity of his performance that makes that the most impressive of the three. He sits at a table but his eye contact with his unseen interrogator actually creates a second presence, spreading out the geography of the space on the tiny stage of the back room of Playbill.

Jenny Crooks handles monologue #2 with something of a reverse approach to Atkinson's stationary performance. She moves about the space freely, focusing her delivery on the unseen "occupant" of the cot in a hospital tent in the desert battle field. Parker Dixon, on the other hand, is confined to a single center-stage chair under a tightly focused light facing the audience as he presents his testimony. Both Crooks and Dixon have material that make points and will probably stimulate post-show conversations, but neither manages the intensity of Atkinson's opening.

Written and directed by Tobin Atkinson. Design: Megan Mai Swanson (costumes) Robert Ross (lights) Michael E. Moon (sound) Debra Duncan (photography) Jenny Byrd (stage manager). Cast: Tobin Atkinson, Jenny Crooks, Parker Dixon.