The EST Marathon's Series A Runs a Familiar Route

Five one-acts lead to fatigue

Comments (0) By Jacob Gallagher-Ross Tuesday, Jun 1 2010

The New York Marathon traverses all kinds of neighborhoods—glam and grimy, scenic and forgettable. The first installment of EST's 2010 marathon of one-act plays displays similar ranginess—bopping from sculpture gardens to cafés to anxious military households. But, like its namesake event, it mostly feels, well, long.

Gerry Goodstein

Series A winner: Where the Children Are at EST

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2010 Marathon of One-Act Plays: Series A
Ensemble Studio Theatre
549 West 52nd Street, 866-811-4111

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The frontrunner, despite surplus earnestness, is Amy Fox's timely Where the Children Are. In braided monologues, U.S. servicepeople's parents relate punishing worries about their children overseas—and the eggshell-walking required when the scarred progeny return.

The rest of the pack hews to well-trodden routes. Adam Kraar's tame Wild Terrain looses a kvetching elderly couple on some public art to muse about aesthetics and mortality. Ben Rosenthal's overwrought Safe pits a nebbishy youngster against his wiser-than-thou guardian; Oedipal outbursts ensue.

In his cornpone Matthew and the Pastor's Wife, Robert Askins ends a predictably lusty encounter between a serial adulterer and a pent-up ecclesiastical spouse with a gruesome twist—visiting Old Testament–style retribution on the smooth-talker, she stitches his mouth shut. And, in Daniel Reitz's formulaic Turnabout, a prissy liberal confronts his own hypocrisy when he's forced to beg for a handout from an ex-boyfriend cohabitating with a (gasp!) Republican.

At EST, alas, there were no cups of Gatorade for tuckered spectators, or finish-line tape to burst through. Future installments might consider who's really running this race.