Free Assorted Br!efs

The Baumgartner Center for Dance is a spacious temple of performance. The vast space feels like a tribute to the potential of human movement. I wasn’t there Saturday afternoon for the dance, though. Renaissance Theaterworks was hosting a program of shorts in the afternoon as a part of its Br!nk New Play Festival.


Maeve Elliot’s Dry Humor is a light comedy sketch in which Abraham Lincoln waits for his dry cleaning in heaven. Kind of a fun premise that serves as a weird opener for the show.


The second short has considerably more weight to it. Playwright Maria Pretzl builds a endearing and refreshing script around a pair of lovers and a friend at a wedding. Bouquet Toss constructs a strong and idiosyncratic relationship between three individuals who manage quite a bit more complexity than most characters manage over the course of a full-length play. Quite an accomplishment.


The third short dives into a strikingly original piece about a woman who finds herself searching for the heart of dance in and within parties all over the planet. Maria Burnham's "The Air B&B of Broken Dreams" has thematic weight AND a tremendous amount of personality. Well worth attending the program for this one alone. Feels rather pleasantly like a clever updated mutation of “Wong’s Lost and Found Emporium” by William F. Wu


Colleen O’Doherty’s Sister of Experience is a rather weighty drama that suffers a bit from being on a program with largely lighter fare. A nun is brought before a priest who is asking her to lie for the benefit of a young woman. It’s pretty heavy stuff and there really are no easy answers in one single totally serious short on the entire program.
 
The show closes-out with a comedic shirt by  Deanne Strasse.Roberta’s Skin is a fun, little examination into the psychology of body image. Nate Press is charming as an inhabitant of a nude beach who is accosted  by a woman who is endeavoring to feel comfortable in her own skin. Ashley Rodriguez is delihghtfully vulnerable as a woman just trying to fearlessly be herself. It’s a really fun ending to the program.


Renaissance Theaterworks’ Br!nk Br!efs! has one more performance on May 19th at 2pm at the Baumgartner Center for Dance on 128 N. Jackson St. Admission to the show is free. (Really.) For more information about the program and everything else on the Br!nk New Plays Festival, visit Renaissance online.