It’s All in the Timing at Onstage Atlanta
February 21st, 2008 by Curt Holman in Internet, TheaterOnstage Atlanta’s production of All in the Timing (Feb. 22-March 22) consists of nine short plays by witty playwright David Ives. Ives specializes in ingenious wordplay and head-spinning gimmicks, but I can’t tell you which ones you’ll see on a given night at Onstage Atlanta, because they don’t know.
The cast has learned the following pieces: “Sure Thing,†“Words Words Words,†“Variations on the Death of Trotsky,†“Singular Kinda Guy,†“The Philadelphia,†“English Made Simple,†“Degas, C’est Moi,†“Time Flies†and Ives’ Preface from his collection of All in the Timing. In an Ives-like touch, the cast will perform seven of the nine plays chosen at random for each performance. “Words Words Words†depicts three monkeys at typewriters, all trying to write Hamlet, while “Time Flies†depicts the courtship of two mayflies who realize they only live for 24 hours.
Onstage will not be serving some of the shorts that Atlanta theater fans may remember from Horizon Theatre’s earlier productions of All in the Timing and other Ives evenings of short plays (all of which featured Atlanta’s delightful Lala Cochran). I vividly recall Horizon taking on “The Universal Language,†which features a pun-based lingo that translates “Excuse me†as “Squeegee†and “English†as “JohnCleese.†And one of the funniest and most unforgettable things I’ve ever seen on a stage anywhere was Horizon’s madcap take on “Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread.†Ives somehow comes up with a verbal, a capella equivalent to Glass’ trademark, repetition-based musical compositions. In this YouTube clip, Jocular Theatre of Barcelona stages the work in a way that feels more avant-garde and less zany, but gives you a feel for it. Again, don’t look for this one at Onstage, though:
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