Ion Theater and InnerMission Productions has brought us David Ives' delightful, six-act, All in the Timing. First performed in 1996, the play has garnered acclaim as well as awards for its wit, intellect, satire and just plain fun. This production is no exception. Let's take a quick look at the six vignettes by this artful word master.
Sure Thing is set in a small coffee shop where we find a young lady (Laura Bozanich) reading a novel. In walks a young man (Andrew Kennedy), spying the empty seat at her table. What transpires is a conversation that abruptly stops when a wrong word, phrase or idea has been expressed. Unlike our normal lives, when either misspeak here, it can be erased and new words added until they finally get it right. (I would love to have this available to me.) It takes a bit of time, but the two finally achieve the communication and outcome that they both really want.
Words, Words, Words is the compelling story of three chimpanzees' attempt to type Hamlet. Will they succeed? Do we care? Are they creative? Maybe, Yes, and Wow! Kennedy returns with Jonathan Sachs and Kim Strassburger to become the typists. A standard complaint is that actors never achieve the true animal characteristics (witness the many bad Sylvias). This cast are chimps, and really good ones. Every movement, including the typing, bespeaks of simian behavior. Congrats to both directors and cast.
The Universal Language is about a con man (Kennedy) who has allegedly developed a universal language and is opening a school to teach it. His first student (Bozanich) is taken in completely. The slimeball finally admits his duplicity, but to no avail. His student, who by now has more than language on her mind, insists that the need exists. At the last minute a new student (Sachs) appears. A charming piece, a bit erotic, and, by George, I was even getting the hang of the nuances of this new universal language.
Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread explores the plight of a celebrity trying to do a very normal thing. Here, nightmarish choreography takes center stage as all four cast members interrelate in dance and single words. The bread, alas, becomes secondary. Glass (Sachs) is brought into a whirl of mindlessness as his two fans (Bozanich and Strassburger) take over, even bringing the poor baker (Kennedy).
Philadelphia is a state of mind. At one time or another we've all had a mind shift and, as in Philadelphia, everything goes completely wrong (e.g., at a restaurant they're out of what you want). Cities have a state of mind. L.A. is laid back and cool. If you're in the mind of Chicago you'd be happy being dead. What you definitely don't want to do is get sucked into somebody's Philadelphia. Alas, Kennedy's character is in Philly and Sachs' character is cooled out in L.A. You know something is gonna happen that ain't gonna be good.
Trotsky closes out the six acts. It is August 21, 1940, the day after his communist gardener, Ramon, planted an axe in his skull. He is mere minutes away from death, oft repeated. He doesn't remember the axe and is still concerned with visions of being killed by an ice pick.
Directors Carla Nell and Claudio Raygoza cast for talent. Laura Bozanich, Andrew Kennedy, Carla Nell, Jonathan Sachs and Kim Strassburger handle their multiple roles with ease.
