Philly Fringe 2018: Juniper Productions presents 'Cocktail Plays: Round Two'

Like last year’s version, the plays are performed in front of Philadelphia Distilling’s long bar. Behind it, tall windows showcase the complex system of distillation vats and pipes for the company’s distinctive gins, a gorgeous (albeit overwhelming) backdrop. Three of the four plays are set in bars, in innovative and distinct ways.

Small but Powerful

Professional theater neglects the one-act play these days. Ten- to fifteen-minute scripts are largely the province of high-school and college theaters, 10-minute-play festivals, and sometimes, Fringe festivals.

All four plays feature actors Marissa Kennedy, Mary Pat Walsh, and Mark Wheeler. First up is Mark J. Costello’s “Date Night.”

Kennedy, in an unforgettable red dress and heels, meets Walsh’s character, a dowdy, middle-aged widow, at a bar. Walsh has signed on with Kennedy’s escort service, one of many items on her “bucket list.” A client requested a MILF, so Walsh prepares for her first encounter with the john, played by Wheeler.

What happens next is a fun surprise and garners the night’s biggest laugh. Unfortunately, Costello has a hard time topping it and nudges the piece to a bland conclusion.

Megan Schumacher’s “Superlosers” lives down to its title. The only play not set in a bar, it’s a confusing comedy about wannabe superheroes and/or supervillains. Bee (Kennedy), Fish (Walsh), and Snake (Wheeler), costumed imaginatively by Lexa Grace, meet to plan mayhem.

For half the play, I thought they were children play-acting before realizing that they’re adults and learning that Snake dates Green Lantern. Where are they? What are they doing? Yawn.

While the cast struggled with lines and cues in all four works on opening night, they seemed particularly lost in “Superlosers.”

Time and place

Bill Agostino’s “Out of Time” is an ambitious short play about a man suffering from senility. He’s been taken to a nursing home but thinks it’s a bar where his wife worked decades ago.

Wheeler isn’t ideal for the man’s role, as he shifts from the present to the past and back again, and donning a cardigan isn’t enough. Walsh plays his daughter and Kennedy his late wife. Still, the meditative and melancholic play is the evening’s most complete.

“Delivery” is a postapocalyptic drama about a mother and son (Walsh and Wheeler) running a water-purifying plant that was once a distillery. Playwright Alexandra Espinoza sketches a future in which a disease has crippled society. Survivors die of “things we could cure 500 years ago” because they lack clean water.

Kennedy, as a survivor living nearby, threatens the pair’s safety. Ferguson struggles with the staging, placing the action at one end of the bar near a door, where the actors navigate around each other awkwardly. The foreboding tone seems like a downbeat ending for the hourlong program.

Growing pains

Some lessons learned from last year include repeating the one-drink-with-ticket policy and again challenging the distillery’s mixologists to create delicious, unique drinks, one for each play. Each features either Distillery's Bluecoat gin, Bluecoat barrel-finished gin, or Penn 1861 vodka, plus unusual ingredients like honey, maple syrup, or cucumber. They're colorful works of art, go down smoothly, and have fun names: “Date Night” inspired “You’re So Bad,” “Superlosers” has “Bee’s Knees,” “Out of Time” gets “Fuck If I Care” (a fun one to order!), and “Delivery” is paired with “Apocalypse.”

Lessons not learned are the importance of lighting actors’ faces (a hodgepodge of home lamps are used). Also, scene changes should be trimmed and something added to fill gaps between plays.

Cocktail Plays: Round Two didn’t build on last year’s success as one might hope. Fortunately, the Apocalypse kept me happy.