There was every reason to be worried about this year’s Summer Shorts, the 16th annual collection of stage vignettes that has become a much-anticipated seasonal fixture in South Florida.
The number of 5-to-20-minute scenes had been reduced to only seven, in a single program instead of the usual two. The company of performers had shriveled to a mere five — about half as many as in the past — and much of the advance publicity focused on a celebrity guest, Jai Rodriguez, featured on TV’s Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and in a couple of Broadway shows.
If there was one thing that we could count on about Summer Shorts was that they would be delivered by a well-balanced ensemble of area performers. Had City Theatre both shrunk the size and scope of its show this year and felt the need to bring in a ringer?
Not to worry. This year’s edition of short-attention-span theater is one of the most successful in the company’s history, as strong a mix of outrageous comedy bumped up against poignant drama as City Theatre has ever mustered.
Past productions, with as many as 18 sketches, divided into two parts and separated by a dinner break, had more of a festival atmosphere, but they also had a disheartening number of what-could-they-have-been-thinking dud scenes.
Now playing at Miami’s Arsht Center, in the comfortably compact Carnival Studio black box theater, configured proscenium style, the evening is pared down to 90 minutes, but each of the short plays is a winner. And the penultimate sketch, Jon Kern’s Hate the Loser Inside, is simply one of the funniest scenes I have ever seen in my years of theater-going.
Nor should there have been any concern about the casting of Rodriguez, who fit into the company seamlessly and demonstrated his acting chops in both comedy and drama. The opening skit, Bienvenidos a Miami by Mark Swaner, directly addressed the issue of featuring a star interloper and Rodriguez quickly showed that he has a sense of humor about himself.
Mock-miffed by Rodriguez’s presence was Stephen Trovillion, a/k/a “Mr. Summer Shorts,” for his countless appearances in which he stole the performance honors from the rest of the group. Late in the production he does so again as sports coach Donny Broadhaus in Hate the Loser Inside, a comic turn so deft and delicious it brings to mind nothing less than Lucille Ball and her classic Vitameatavegamin routine.
Trovillion plays a wound-too-tight celeb coach, trying to videotape a commercial on a kitchen set, but he keeps flubbing his lines. That’s it. Nothing more. But Trovillion is such a master of comic timing and the slow burn that the results are convulsively funny. In an evening of strong writing and performances, he remains “Mr. Summer Shorts.”
He is matched with Rodriguez in another of the best scenes, a simple but affecting encounter between two men in a therapist’s waiting room (Quiet, Please! by Garth Wingfield.). Trovillion also shows his silly side as a Caligula-like Emperor from outer space in Mickey Herman Saves The $#&@ World, a sci-fi spoof by Marco Ramirez that, while amusing, went on a tad too long.
The most prominent name among the featured playwrights is Israel Horovitz, whose tight dramatic scene, What Strong Fences Make, pits an Israeli border guard against an old acquaintance turned suicide bomber. Rodriguez and Gregg Weiner fulfill the roles well, though the writing lacks surprise.
Weiner is returning to Summer Shorts after a five-year absence with a particularly welcome presence in Aboard the Guy V. Molinari by Bara Swain, about two strangers on the Staten Island ferry, both intent on leaping to their death. Finnerty Steeves, who has a terrifically expressive face, plays the other down-on-her-luck loner.
Steeves pairs with Ceci Fernandez in Richard Hellesen’s Dos Corazones (Two Hearts), a Summer Shorts favorite that has appeared in two previous editions. It involves two new mothers in maternity ward beds, side-by-side yet separated by a language gulf, learning to communicate about the responsibilities of the newborns in their lives.
Summer Shorts likes to end with a broadly comic sketch involving the entire company and does so again this time with another encore playlet, Rolin Jones’s Chronicles Simpkins Will Cut Your Ass, about a trio of no-nonsense mean girls terrorizing a male peer and a helpless playground monitor teacher on the tetherball court. Nearly mute because of her dental retainer, Steeves still manages to gain laughs with her mumbles and takes, while Rodriguez has fun in drag as the title ring leader.
For consistency and sheer entertainment value, this 16th Summer Shorts is a winner, even if downsizing for economic reasons was the cause. You will probably enjoy the whole evening, but if you saw only Trovillion in Hate the Loser Inside you would get your money’s worth from the experience.
SUMMER SHORTS. City Theatre at the Adrienne Arsht Center, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami. Through Sunday, June 26. Tickets: $45. Call: (305) 949-6722. Summer Shorts also will play the Broward Center in Fort Lauderdale from June 30-July 3. For tickets and information, call (954) 462-0222 or visit www.browardcenter.org.