Odds Stacked Against This Festival of One-Acts

In his opening remarks before Friday’s performance at Theatre East of the one-act festival “Ten the Hard Way,” director Michael Alaimo rightly referred to the company as “the oldest theatrical crap game in L.A.” It’s 39 years old, in fact, and nothing epitomizes the crap game more than the current one-acts.

That’s because any selection of short plays, with various playwrights, directors and actors, is by nature going to be uneven. “Ten the Hard Way” is divided into three programs (program A has two plays; B and C have four each), with six playwrights, seven directors and 22 actors.

Perhaps a machine might forge consistency out of this, but theater isn’t a machine. So Program B, as good as any of the sets to review with its sampling of four writers and directors, is understandably rough going. Rhonda Brown’s “Blue Light Special” opens things with some promise, as director Alaimo’s cast seems to have burrowed under the skins of the characters laboring away at a Tennessee Kmart.

The store is losing business to the nearby Wal-Mart, not helping store manager Becky (Holly Thomson), who tries to maintain her leadership cool but can’t in the wake of realizing that her husband has left her. There’s a “Steel Magnolias” aura about the play’s comedy and drama, especially between Becky and loyal friend Darla (Brown), which overshadows the male characters, young Josh (Joe Avalon) and struggling, elderly Mr. Reeder (Jay Gerber). The piece’s inconclusive ending suggests that this is a scene from a longer, full-length play to come.

Even in its incompleteness, though, “Blue Light” feels downright novelistic compared with Christopher White’s pencil sketch of a play, “Opening the Door,” which glibly depicts how Edna (Jordan Baker) coaxes boyfriend Louie (Eric Rudnick) to say how much he loves her--more, even, than his dog.

Director Peter Ratray has Baker and Rudnick work up some lively energy in the exchanges in which the couple simply can’t connect, making their quickly found connection at the end completely unearned.

Things go further downhill with Peter Sands’ thoroughly dislikable “Say You Love Me,” imagining what vengeance two lesbian lovers (Thomson’s Casey and Elena-Melanie Fabri’s Paula) can wreak on a would-be ladies’ man (Curt Collier’s Steve). Becky teases Steve after a date, and it’s obvious to everyone but Steve that she’s playing with him. We can also see the couple on a pair of video monitors, which Steve supposedly can’t see. Enter Paula, armed with a video camera and what looks like a gun. Steve is tortured, played with and let go, before the gals top it off with a kiss. It doesn’t get more dehumanizing than this, under Dan Hyduck’s aimless direction.

Order is restored in the closer, W. Colin McKay’s “Hope Springs Eternal,” which places two women (Michele Parker’s Sarah and Jill Martin’s Helena) together on a city bridge. At first, Helena is a nosy, wisecracking irritant for the morose Sarah, and McKay’s drama is the sort where if Sarah walks away, there’s no play.

They’re both somehow drawn to this spot, and despite their distinct paths to this place, share the dark impulse for suicide. McKay’s treatment of this difficult emotional landscape has its share of manipulation, but under Kirk Wallace’s direction and an honest dynamic between Parker and Martin, the manipulation is blunted.

BE THERE

“Ten the Hard Way,” Theatre East, 12655 Ventura Blvd., second floor, Studio City. Program B: Sunday, 3 p.m.; June 17, 8 p.m.; Program A: Saturday, 8 p.m.; June 16, 8 p.m.; Program C: Friday, 8 p.m.; June 18, 3 p.m. Ends June 18. $12; festival, $26. (818) 760-4160. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.