by Maria Staiano-Daniels
Daily Lobo
Alternative relationships are on sale this weekend. You can get five for the price of one at Gorilla Tango Comedy Theater.
Gorilla Tango will present "Men, Women, and Robots: An Evening of Short Plays" Friday through Sunday as part of the Words Afire Festival. Each of the five plays in this production involves a relationship that veers from the norm, from a pair of women 900 years in the future who order a baby via computer to a sick menage a trois of a man, a woman and an Xbox.
The Words Afire Festival produces plays written by students and professors at UNM. Apparently, we have some high-quality artists. The five plays of "Men, Women, and Robots" were well written, compressing surprising depth into a few minutes of stage time.
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For example, "Sarita's Smile," by grad student Don Garcia, is the story of Papo, a man coming to terms not only with his daughter's death, but with the fact that his daughter's girlfriend is raising his granddaughter. The play was poignant and touching, but not sappy.
Barney Lopez's Papo was excellent - an irreverent and funny man, but also a man grieving for the loss of his daughter.
"Death to the Xbox," by UNM senior Stephanie Elise Dexter, is another great play. It deals with a problem that many girls will recognize: the boyfriend who spends more time with his Xbox than with his girlfriend. The script captures, with accuracy that can only come from experience, the futility of trying to have a relationship with someone who spends most of his time playing video games.
Shannon Flynn was the highlight of this play as Mike, the gamer. He spent almost the entire time playing an imaginary game with almost sexual intensity. Shannon Rogers gave a sincere and believable performance as his long-suffering girlfriend, Krystal. The final scene of the play, when she finally snaps, was a joy to behold.
Creating a full character is a challenge with short plays, because neither the audience nor the actors have time to warm up to a character gradually. The actor has to be in character as soon as the play starts, otherwise the audience will never identify with him or her emotionally.
The actors of "Men, Women, and Robots" navigated this pitfall with varying degrees of success. In some of the plays the actors seemed a little unsure of themselves and their roles. This was never a large problem, but it did make one or two of the shorts less effective than they could have been.
This was not a problem for Sabri Sky's "Plays Well With Traffic," the last and longest play in the lineup. This play focuses on two friends, Brace and Kevin Carol, and the game of chicken they play with cars on the highway.
Hana Li plays Brace, a young lesbian who plays games in traffic to feel alive. Li's performance was riveting - she was charged with restless energy from the first moment she entered the stage. Li and Brad Howard, who plays aspiring drag queen Kevin Carol, have amazing chemistry. Their relationship seethed with tension and complexity. They intermittently joked, fought and were sexually attracted to each other, but all the transitions were completely natural.
"Men, Women, and Robots" is about looking for human connections in a changing and increasingly inhuman world. What better way to connect than to get out see a play?
