Theater Review : At OCC Play Festival, Virtual One-Man Show Is Sketchy

Orange Coast College’s Original Play Festival took me by surprise. I’d hoped it would expose me to the work of young college playwrights. Instead, I discovered the Dave Barton Showcase.

At 34, Barton does not qualify as a young college playwright, but he is in college, and he is writing plays. And of the five works in the festival, he has written four. So here goes.

His pieces mean well. The first runs eight minutes or so. It’s a sketch called “+/-.” Two guys (presumably Plus and Minus) are breaking up. One accuses the other of philandering. A third guy, the philanderee, shows up. Before you can make up your mind about what to think, the piece is over.

The second piece, “A Better Man,” runs 15 minutes and is too long by half. A homeless woman without a name and Dean, a guy with a conscience, encounter each other on the street. She asks for money. He tells her that he doesn’t have any but that he’ll buy her a meal. She tells him Elton John killed her dog, Burt Reynolds’ black lesbian bodyguard attacked her, and Jane Fonda and Ted Turner won’t let her into their bomb shelter. Dean finally offers her a bill from his wallet.

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The third piece, co-written with L.A. Waddell, is called “In the House of the Lord.” Forty minutes in length, it is set in a Family Planning Clinic under siege by religious abortion opponents. Two of them infiltrate the clinic, kill the doctor and hold the outpatients hostage. Everyone in the waiting room and the hostage-takers get to deliver a monologue about who they are and how they got there. It’s poor dramaturgy, but it’s topical.

Barton’s fourth piece, a short sketch called “Vacation,” is scheduled this weekend. Bryan Prince’s “Mouse Tails and Velveeta” will get one performance Sunday.

* The Orange Coast College Original Play Festival continues Friday to Sunday at the Drama Lab, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa. $5. Call for times. (714) 432-5932.