Red Barn Theater Review / Short Attention Span

Is long on talent and creativity

By Joanna Brady

This is the second time I’ve had the pleasure of seeing a Short Attention Span production at the Red Barn Theater; the first time was a couple of years ago. The current offering, “Enjoy the Ride” is a presentation of seven clever short plays, allwell-written, culled from various sources and festivals around the country. They star talented local actors Don Bearden, Carolyn Cooper, Vanessa McCaffrey, Erin McKenna, John Reynolds, and Jeremy Zoma in a variety of different roles.

The directing talent pool for the production is equally skilled and up to the task. Directors include Dave Bootle, Richard Grusin, Amber McDonald Good, Gary McDonald, Jack McDonald, Mimi McDonald (yes, the whole McDonald clan is directing now!) Acorns don’t fall far from the tree.

Since seeing “With Bells On” just before Christmas, I have become a big Don Bearden fan. He turns in a terrific performance as a sleazy PR guy, who’s lost all his money, in the short play titled “The Whites”. He’s also very good as the man selling off his stuff in Shel Silverstein’s “Yard Sale”, and appears as a cowboy in the finale, “One More Time.”

Being a sucker for people wearing animal costumes, I loved John Reynolds’ performance as a large penguin explaining the mating rituals of his species to a human in Antartica in the first play, “Off the Map,” as well as Jeremy Zoma’s cat impersonation in “Ailurophobia.” You gotta wonder how many romances have been killed by a pesky cat! (Kudos to Carmen Rodriguez for those animal costumes.) Both of these plays were excellent. Jeremy Zoma, in fact, has a demanding evening, appearing in six of the seven plays.

Veteran actresses Vanessa McCaffrey, Erin McKenna, and Carolyn Cooper all turn in excellent performances, each acting in at least two plays. McCaffrey is a great foil for Bearden in “The Whites” playing a society matron who has committed an indiscretion with Tiger Woods. McKenna is a vegetarian about to embark on an affair with plants, even agreeing to a three-way involving a fern named Verne. (To be fair, it is a very attractive plant!) She’s also a pregnant woman in “Wedding Bash.” The latter was a winner in the Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway Festival of plays, 41st season.

The final play stars the whole cast. It’s hugely funny, and will be appreciated by anyone who has taken small children on the boat ride at Disney’s Magic Kingdom past the singing dolls in “Small World.” Between the boats going by, the dolls come to life and kvetch about their lot in life, mostly having to sing that blessed song all day long, every single day—an ear worm kind of song that lingers in your head for hours. It’s a clever concept, and contains a line that could apply to theater, delivered by Carolyn Cooper in a Dutch girl costume: “We don’t get to experience the magic, but we get to create it for other people.”

I love the concept of brevity in everything, and I appreciate that short plays are particularly demanding. Like crafting a poem or a piece of flash fiction, the writing must be disciplined and tight, with a beginning, a middle, and an end, using no excess words. And it’s never easy to create characters with the limitations imposed by such brevity.

In this, Short Attention Span theatre 2019 “Enjoy the Ride” the demands of the genre are beautifully met by writers Rich Orloff, Michael McKeever, Carolyn Cooper (yes, she writes as well as acts), Andrew Leeds & Lindsey Kraft, Scott Gibson, Mark Harvey Levine, and the late Shel Silverstein.

It’s great entertainment. See it. You’ll love it!

“Enjoy the Ride” will run Tuesday, January 15 through Saturday, February 5, all performances at 8 p.m. Red Barn is located at 319 Duval (Rear) in Key West. Tickets available online, or call (305) 296-9911 For further information, call Bob Bowersox at 302-540-6102.

(Joanna Brady is a local writer, author of the historical Key West novel, The Woman at the Light, published by St. Martin’s Press)

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