Summer Shorts
With Summer Shorts–two programs of thoughtful one-acts, “Forced Perspective” and “Still Life”–the Neo-Futurists give themselves the opportunity to shape an entire evening. Creating a unified show from several pieces by different writers is a notoriously difficult task, and for the most part the unity here is aesthetic rather than thematic: Summer Shorts is highly formal, at times somber, more often elegantly austere. In almost every piece the actors remain motionless, gesturing minimally, thinking through decidedly complicated material. Not all the pieces succeed, but by and large the sterling cast deliver the kind of intellectual thrills for which the Neo-Futurists are famous.
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Summer Shorts, which will run as part of the sixth annual Rhinoceros Theater Festival later this month, would be much more effective if pared to a single evening. But some unevenness might remain even then, since the Neo-Futurists are breaking new ground: the simplicity, restraint, and overall stillness of their approach in Summer Shorts stand in marked contrast to the unfettered, raucous atmosphere at Too Much Light. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised when the plays in Summer Shorts work, however–after seven years of the sylistically diverse pieces in Too Much Light, the Neo-Futurists have proved how versatile they are.
