magid

Last night I went to industrial theatre's 7 X 7, a festival of new works (playlets). Everything had some link to the number 7, even the logo on the program, seven 7's equally spaced around a circle (making a regular heptagon in the middle, which was cool; not a shape seen very much.).

The theater space was in Harvard's Leverett House, and there was plenty of leg room, though the folding chairs weren't particularly comfortable.

24/7 (Susan Trausch) had the North, South, East, and West winds petitioning Zeus for an extra hour/day, and an extra day/week, to keep profits up, by increasing productivity, since all the workers worked all the time now anyway (things having been changed so nothing needed sleep). So it would be 25/8... which might then grow to 26/9....

7 & 7 (William Donnelly) had a woman at a bar, explaining lots of detail about the history of alcohol production, up to and including the creation of the 7 & 7, Seagram's Seven and 7Up. She quested for certainty in an uncertain universe, wanting the drink that is always the same, and similar control in the rest of her life... hence her dedicated quest for cirrhosis; she'd rather the certainty of knowing her killer than wait to see what happened.

3 Rivers, 3 Lakes, 1 Sea (Eddie Myricks) was two men who became buddies over fishing, how they related to one another as their lives changed. Some good dialogue, but the 7 connection seemed tenuous.

7 Dreams (Bill Lattanzi) had seven strange scenes, dreams, or perhaps memories, some of them. I wasn't sure if they were dreams of the future, or the possible future, or what had passed, or what. The bits in and of themselves were interesting, but as a whole, confusing.

The intermission should've been 14 minutes, not 15, as someone pointed out. (Someone else pointed out it should've started at 7 pm, too.)

Seven Little Days (Dani Slepian) involves two women meeting for coffee, ostensibly old friends celebrating one's promotion, but it changes: the promoted one finally lets out the old hurts about a third friend going behind her back to get the girl they (apparently) both desired; having been encouraged to go on vacation for a week, seven little days, and coming back to find a pair where there had been two singles before...

The Seventh Floor (Sean Barney) is where God's office is, with his secretary Mary Magdalene. Lucifer works on the sixth floor, and people live on the fifth (where this came from, I'm not sure). Lucifer has a proposal for changes to the business structure, also changes in their working relationship, after the divorce...

Seven Hours Overtime (James Henderson) is about a clerk at a convenience store working far too many hours straight, dealing with some of the weirdo who wander in, fighting his own tiredness. He has someone hooked on scratch tix, a creepy guy (the character name is Potential Naked Guy), two hooligan friends, then his ex-gf.

There was a lot of use of the sound system for words, not just music or other incidental noise, introductions to the plays as the sets were changed, internal thoughts for the clerk in the last play, etc.

Interesting production, all around.

Bonus for anyone who's read this far: next month the same group is having an event of some sort, not exactly sure what. The description is:
"A free-form free-for-all (with free admission). Artists come together and cook up a fresh batch of ... something. A fine event for the adenturous and short of funds alike."
Anyone interested?