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Saturday, June 08, 2002

By John Hayes, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

A university professor discovers that her lover/grad student assistant is having an affair with her husband, who was the professor's professor and lover when she was in school.

	New Plays on Penn II: "The Gun in Act 1" WHERE: Penn Avenue Theatre, 4809 Penn Ave., Bloomfield/Garfield. WHEN: 8 tonight and 2 p.m. tomorrow. TICKETS: $10 to $25; 412-661-PENN (7366).

It's an interesting premise for a play, certainly deserving of a spot in New Plays on Penn II, Penn Avenue Theatre's festival for locally written, full-length works. But in Marjorie Stewart's "The Gun in Act 1," the protagonist discovers the affair through the teasing of a pestering Greek chorus, and her reaction to it is co-opted by three actors portraying Time, Action and Place.

And that gun in the title? It sits on a table throughout the show, its future in question.

The straight story about the love triangle is almost a footnote. What counts is what's scribbled in the margins of the script. "The Gun in Act 1" isn't about the gun or people around it. The play is about all that's going on in the mind of the playwright as she's writing it. It's an abstract crash course in Advanced Play Writing, or perhaps inside baseball for disillusioned academics.

If you're none of the above, however, it's a whirlwind of big words and confusing conflicts.

Stewart stokes the script with the catch-phrases, buzz words and situational dynamics of academe.

Her characters speak in the convoluted, utterly precise prose of snooty literature. She breaks every rule in "Play Writing for Dummies."

The gag behind this quirky comedy is it's all on purpose -- the non-formulaic character selection; the exaggerated, awkward language; the personification of the rudiments of stage craft.

It's a joke that might resonate with local theater fans who have seen some of Stewart's 20 local productions or know her background (she holds an M.F.A. from the University of Pittsburgh and teaches English at La Roche College).

Stewart's send-up of playwriting and the academic life is a fun idea that probably needs another draft or two. To make sure everybody gets it, she might consider making the lesson more obvious -- perhaps adding a visual lesson plan explained by the Chorus to help to redline the continuity.

The cast gets the joke and seems to have fun with it. Scott Van de Mark is most believable as the professor's husband, and Marcia Sekulich and Jennifer Obed square off well as the acute angles of the love triangle.

Director Mark A. Calla lets D.J. Sylvis overplay the wacky Chorus, while Joe Pauley is reserved in drag. Josh Berresford, Kelly Diane Hardy and Regan Merran are tied together, literally, as the badgering Time, Action and Place.

Next week at New Plays on Penn II, it's Robert Isenberg's "32 ft. Per Sec. Per Sec."