In “Glass” we have an argument among bric-a-brac about the various items on the shelf that goes from Disney-esque funny to sexually abusive and suicidal. Now, where do you find that on your average stage?
In “Kill,” Deirdre O’Connell (perhaps the finest actress in New York City) sits on a cloud representing all gods, spouting a furious monologue that rambles and raves and simply loses it for 12 delicious minutes on stage. She cannot be beat on stage!
“What If If Only” seemed to be a contemplation of grief and loss. The staging here expands and (literally) illuminates its meaning. It begins with what seems to be idle thoughts by a lone figure in a box with all-white walls. “I was reading about this man who spent 10 years trying to paint an apple so it looked just like an apple. Then he spent seven years trying to paint an apple so it looked nothing like an apple. Then he died.” He wonders what kind of apple, and if he had lived would he have started in on an orange, and then asks how hard could it be to paint something that looks nothing like an apple. “
“Imp,” which takes up as much time as the other three combined, and unfolds after an intermission, is the most conventional-seeming of the four plays. It is a realistic one act that presents a middle class home of Dot and Jimmy who deal with a distant relative who works their way into their home and rather undoes the relationship between Dot and Jimmy and, of course, an “imp” or magical force that lives in a bottle – – that never appears and really never seems to make any difference to the play. It was not my favorite and unfortunately placed at the end of the evening did seem to be a bit of a downer to an otherwise wonderfully wild roller coaster of an evening.