Twisted tales

New England Rep's terrific trio

by Bill Rodriguez

THREE STRANGE ROMANCES. Directed by Tom Hunter. With Lynn Latham, Laurent Andruet, Nicole DeRosa, Albert Aeed, Dawn Tucker, and Mike Kiernan. Performed by the New England Repertory Company at the Bell Street Chapel through May 12.

Lynn Latham and Laurent Andruet in 'The Loveliest Afternoon of the Year'

A good one-act play is like a good waiter. It tells you no more than you want to know, feeds your needs, and scrams. Oh, yes -- and it doesn't suck up. A trio of plays, Three Strange Romances, is being staged at Bell Street Chapel by the New England Repertory Company. They provide a satisfying repast indeed and seem more interested in nourishing us than in calling attention to the good service.

That is, things are kept simple. Not just because black-box theater isn't the place for lavish production values, but because we're dealing with pros and the play is the thing. Film and TV actor Tom Hunter directs with understanding and restraint. The plays are all award-winners, so enjoying the short stories is a given. The six actors, who range in talent from respectable to superb, channel the tales with conviction and skill.

Especially compelling is Nicole DeRosa in Twirler, by the pseudonymous Jane Martin (rumored to be former Actors Theatre of Louisville artistic director Jon Jory). The monologue is a droll and fascinating riff on the availability of mystical transcendence in any physical discipline performed with devotion; it could have been about synchronized swimming or bowling. April March, the baton twirler, calls it "blue-collar Zen." Standing before us with her baton and red uniform, she wants to explain the glory of twirling, which she has been getting awards for since age six.

Tossing the flashing wand 30 feet into the air is a way to physically unite with Revelation, she tells us. The devil doesn't bother interfering "because it's hidden by a football game." Unknowingly, April reminds us of the pagan roots of Christianity as she tells us of a secret winter solstice ritual performed by serious twirlers, which leaves the snow speckled with sacrificial blood. What's this doing in a trio of plays about love? Go ask a nun.

The opener is a black comedy, The Loveliest Afternoon of the Year, an early play by John Guare. The sensibility of the then-28-year-old playwright is as hilariously surreal as it was five years later in his career-making The House of Blue Leaves. Much of its success here belongs to director Hunter; since he doesn't make the mistake of playing this absurd duo for laughs, the laughs are endless. This romance is grimly sincere.

A young man (Laurent Andruet) and a sweet young thing from Ohio (Lynn Latham) meet in Central Park. He's quite insane, first getting her attention pulling a plastic bag over his head in a suicide attempt. She's been in New York for 11 months, but this is the first conversation she has had, so she's a few guests short of a party herself. Of course, they fall in love. The fun bits are the wacky lies he keeps coming up with. He doesn't take the subway because his jealous wife keeps bending all his tokens in her teeth. He says he's a seeing-eyed person for blind dogs. The unwise match is all stock acting workshop approach-avoidance-conflict invention. What sets the story apart is how it darts to the heart of all those crazed, unlikely romantic match-ups we've witnessed, or survived.

The closer is Hello Out There, by William Saroyan, which fills the second half of the evening. Although it concludes with the sort of pathos and high drama now out of favor, it has been called Saroyan's finest one-act, although the writer apologized that it was a mere "report [of] chaos and hate." In the play, a man (Albert Aeed) awakens one night in a Texas jail after a beating. "Hello out there" is as much his lament as a reaching out. The only other person to hear him is a girl of 17, Emily (Dawn Tucker), who cooks and cleans at the jail. They grow close, especially as it sinks in to both of them that he might be dragged out and lynched for a rape he insists he didn't commit before the night is over.

A dimension not attempted is that he might be lying to her, a violent man sweet-talking to get Emily to help him escape, only later expressing honest affection. Nevertheless, Aeed gives him character and backbone, playing him as desolate rather than hapless, and gaining our sympathy without currying favor. Tucker provides the requisite tension between timidity and bravery. It's all a melodrama, even before the supposed victim (Latham) and her riled husband (Mike Kiernan) arrive. But there's enough honesty of emotion and incident for us cynical modern audiences to appreciate it.

A four-year-old troupe from southern Massachusetts, New England Repertory Company is hoping to find a home in Providence. If their work continues to be as solid as this, they certainly will find themselves welcome.