Like theatre but got a short attention span? This festival is for you.
The Cultch in Vancouver is hosting a unique one-act theatre fest June 14-15. For $18, you get four mini plays back to back – with all the action and drama condensed down into a single act each.
I think this is brilliant. The traditional, three-act play is a cultural pillar that goes all the way back to Aristotle – but lots of people are intimidated by the length. With so many other entertainment options out there – 3D movies, HD TV, YouTube – asking an audience to sit through two intermissions is a tall order.
Enter the one-act play. Think of it as a short story. You get all the climax and character and tension – but none of the tedious lead up and resolution of a three-act play. Here’s what’s in store at the 1-Act Festival.
Some plays are originals. Others are reinterpretations of classic one-act works. They’re all performed by Shift Theatre – a collective of emerging artists dedicated to producing provocative, relevant art in Vancouver.
The fest kicks off on June 14 at 8 p.m. at the Cultch’s Vancity Culture Lab.
- Start the night with The Act, a psychological tale of a disturbed women and her loosening grip on reality.
- Next, dive into Caught in the Act, a comedy about two people trying to find out how they ended up in the same bed together.
- Here We Are is a new staging of the classic tale of a newlywed couple whose bond unravels on their first train ride.
- Wrap things up with A Rope in the Sand, about a woman stranded in the Egyptian desert after the Arab Spring riots.
On June 15, the festival offers a completely different lineup.
- An Inheritance explores how one family’s women keep an oral history of its stories, both fact and fiction.
- See Bob Run looks at a teenage hitchhiker with a dark past.
- Funeral Parlor focuses on a grieving widow accosted at her husband’s funeral.
- Nate and Troy: The Next Big Things is a part-improv and part-script comedy.
Tickets are $18 for adults; $15 for students and seniors.
If you can’t make those performances, Shift’s 1-Act Festival moves to Port Moody’s Inlet Theatre from June 21-23.
