The Pocket Playhouse will challenge audiences’ wits this Thursday with the opening of “Mere Mortals,” a play by David Ives. University sophomore Nathan Loveless directs six fellow students in the four one-acts that comprise the show.
The four vignettes have nothing in common except their absurdity and humor. Ives is a satirist and excels at sharp social commentary. In slightly less than an hour, audiences are assaulted with jokes about sex, feminine and masculine stereotypes, death and general human interaction. The viewer is assaulted because the play makes fun of the life that everybody leads, not just the characters in the play.
The first act, titled “Foreplay: Or the Art of Fugue,” revolves around one man at three different stages in life, taking three different dates out to miniature golf. Although the three couples don’t exist in the same time, they exist in the same space. The beauty of the action is brought about by the dialogue, which resembles the musical style of a fugue — a repeated theme played and bounced around by different instruments.
The second act, “Time Flies,” is based around two mayflies who have just met. During their brief time together, they discover that they only have a day to live, and the audience experiences that short day in an even shorter 15 minutes. This act is the funniest of the four, which is partly because of its universal appeal.
The third act, “Degas C’est Moi,” requires a little knowledge about Edgar Degas. As the act unfolds, a man has decided to assume the persona of the famous painter, and he goes about his day seeing things in a new light. Freshman Eli Levine supplies the innocence and amazement at simple things that is required for the role.
The final act, “Speed the Play,” is worth much more to an audience that has an understanding of the works and style of playwright David Mamet. The act is a condensed version of five of his plays, mediated by a hilarious cross-dressed Talia Thelen. Ives mocks Mamet’s male-dominated writing style by having the men talk almost exclusively about women and say “fuck” a lot. The act seems more improvised than scripted, but that only reflects Ives’ mastery of the language and the caliber of the performances.
The set is minimalist, as most Pocket shows are, but the lack of defined physical references increases the focus on the text. If the audience is willing to pay enough attention to keep up, it will be a rewarding experience. All around, the actors are up to the demands that Ives requires in his plays, and Loveless does the writer honor with his production.
“Mere Mortals” runs today at 5 p.m. and Saturday at 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. in the Pocket Playhouse in Villard Hall.
