Most people remember Shel Silverstein for his poems about sidewalk endings and generous apple trees.
But the writer also penned plays for Playboy magazine, and this weekend, the Vortex Theatre showcased these risquÇ shorts.
"Shel's Shorts" was introduced as a play for mature audiences and opened to a scene where a convenience store employee leaves a sign up while he uses the restroom. Daniel Cornish played the employee and Rachel Tatum was his boss. The two argued over the ethics of Cornish's sign "Gone to Take a (expletive)."
The scene reaches its comical height when Cornish tries forcing his boss to curse and eventually succeeds. Tatum loses control near the end of the skit, screams the profanity repeatedly and threatens to fire him for the sign.
Cornish's character came straight from a Kevin Smith film - he could have easily been a gas station attendant in "Clerks." He showed authentic emotion despite the obvious humor in the skit. He seemed to become genuinely angry when Tatum would not curse.
"Dreamers" opened with two plumbers sitting on a bathtub next to a broken sink. Brandon Sciarrotta was dressed as a cowboy and fixing the sink, while Ethan Moya stayed on the bathtub to talk about his dream. Moya talked about how he almost dreamed about homosexuality and thinks he might be gay. He is reassured when Sciarrotta tells him he dreams about sex with his daughter and mother. This scene is funny and sticks to the Silverstein formula of much to do about nothing.
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"Duck" analyzed the different uses of the word duck. The scene opens to Cornish on a chair with a pipe talking to an inspector played by Phillip Hughes. When the inspector leaves through a low doorway with the sign "Duck" posted near it, he ducks his head and gets bitten by a duck on the foot.
They go on to argue the implied meaning of the sign and of Cornish's warnings. Just when Hughes is about to leave through another door, Cornish yells "Duck, duck!" and a duck flies into Hughes' groin knocking him to the ground. This short was cleverly written in its examination of something as everyday as synonyms.
This style of humor continues throughout the play with a little nudity and some references to drug use. Cornish plays his dynamic range of roles well. He played a cowboy, a nerdy kid and a gas station attendant, along with several others.
"Shel's Shorts" may not have been what some audience members expected, but it was a welcome surprise.
Grade: A
