How does one review a festival?
It’s an interesting question, and one that I pondered for some time before I attended West Fest a few nights ago.
The answer is, you can’t…I will not see every play presented over the next four weeks, just the ones I saw the opening week. So I cannot go into lengthy and hilarious descriptions of each and every minute of each and every play, which would be pointless anyway of course.
But what I can do is tell you a little about the plays I did see and encourage you to take the time to see these wonderful plays for yourselves, as I would always do with any play at Theatre west, since everything I have ever seen there is spectacularly good.
All these plays are original works developed with the actors from the acting workshops and the writers from the writing workshops at Theatre West. But let me impress upon you that these plays are hardly ‘rough around the edges’ as you might expect from something still in development.
No, these plays are beautifully constructed, brilliantly written and expertly and inspiringly acted.
The plays you will see have already competed for selection for the festival, and once selected they are crafted specifically for the nearly empty stage at Theatre West. It's the simplest of spaces for each of these wildly different productions to weave their magic.
With subjects as varied as a woman haunted by the spirit of her recently deceased mother in search of a last cup of coffee, a group of elderly ladies in a retirement community lamenting the lack of virile men their age, estranged sisters reconnecting after their fathers funeral, an older gay couple recollecting their past on the morning Prop 8 was finally passed, and to a sublime re-visioning of Waiting for Godot in a desert… with cowboys. A group of more eclectic and seemingly unconnected shorts there could surely never be.
But they are connected.
They're connected by talent, artistry, inventive vision, passion and commitment to excellence.
In short, they are all connected by the 50 more years of creative energy that is Theatre West.
I’m only sorry I won't be able to see every play in the festival. But the ones I did see reminded me just how incredible live theatre is, how it can touch you like nothing else can, make you laugh one minute and cry the next, make you forget to breath it’s so good, and make your face ache from smiling.
The actors are so good it’s hard for me to remember any performances I have seen that better theirs. Short plays are sometimes just sketches, with little substance or much to remember. But all five plays I saw were just brilliant. Funny, poignant, sad, strange, interesting and most of all human. Because those are the things that make us human after all.
I thoroughly recommend West Fest at Theatre West.
West Fest runs from November 13th Through November 29th, Friday & Saturdays @ 8pm and Sundays @ 2pm