The Trains of Painesville’s heroine wrote some funny personal ad copy, but it has nothing on what Luke prepares in Jon Potter’s immensely fun Romance (directed by Jen Widor) — and Luke actually sends his in to the paper. In his über-satiric, abbreviation-riddled ad, he describes himself as a “DSMAG who hates LWOTB,” which I will not spoil by decoding. (Try treating it as a dating Rorschach.) No sooner has Luke sent it off and forgotten about it than he’s visited by a trinity of weirdos: Rachael Weinstein as Treesa, who has renamed herself after trees and is “real partial to a barbed wire tattoo around the bicep;” Virginia Conley as a Georgia Baptist whose proselytizations tend to end in death; and Ellen Peters, taut and strident as alpha-woman hippie backpacker Veronica. Can things get even weirder? Of course they can.
Acorn is also featuring the work of playwright and USM professor John Manderino, with an all-Manderino night slated for Saturday. The remaining nights will be devoted to the traditional mix of local voices. Come out to see what eclectic fantasies have been possessing our region’s playwrights.
Maine Short Play Festival 2006 | Through April 2 | 13 one-act plays by Danie Connolly, Lynne Cullen, Carolyn Gage, Linda Griffith, Jay Lawrence, John Manderino, Dana Pearson + John Potter | Directed by Harlan Baker, Michael Levine + Jen Widor | Produced by Acorn Productions | St. Lawrence Arts and Community Center, 76 Congress St, Portland | $10 per show, $6 for students + seniors, passes available | 207.766.3386
On the Web
Acorn Productions: www.acorn-productions.org
Email the author
Megan Grumbling: mgrumbling@hotmail.com
