Generation finds its voice in Lionface’s one act plays

The current generation of college students and
recent graduates strikes me as the Lost Generation without Paris. Brimming with
energy and creativity they are passing into a society stultified by economic
inertia and lack of imagination.Instead of Hemingway’s fabled Moveable Feast
that was Paris in the 1920s, young people must make the best of where they are,
including Bowling Green.That seems to this baby boomer, the spirit behind
Lionface Productions, making the best of what’s available. The youthful
production company has done well with that, including its current production of
"Winter One Acts." The show continues tonight and Saturday at 8 p.m.
and Sunday at 2 p.m. in the South Main Common Space in Bowling Green.The three
scripts were all written specifically for Lionface, and all reflect the angst of
20-somethings. While that may seem like heavy going, even the most dour
subjects, are leavened by sharp writing. The production runs a compact hour,
packing plenty of provocation in those 60 minutes.First up is "It’s All in
the Wrist" written by Chase M. Will and directed by Ryan Halfhill. The
script is set in 2015 when the country is so consumed by foreign wars that it
doesn’t have enough young people to recruit into the military. All forms of
risky behavior, smoking, anything that requires wearing a helmet, casual sex are
prohibited. "Pro-creation brothels" have been set up to foster
national fertility. In the midst of this George Marston (Michael Portteus) is
making a killing, literally, with an underground Internet program about teen
suicide. We join the action just as the final episode in which the "teen
celebrity" Adam-X (Ryan Albrect) will slit his own throat begins. Adam-X is
now reluctant, but Marston, played by Portteus as a charming bully, threatens
that if he doesn’t go through with it he will disappear and his sister may be
recruited in his place, or maybe sold to a brothel.But Marston has his own
demons, which come to haunt him. Albrect dramatizes the conflicts between being
the allure of celebrity and the desire to live and endure.The second play,
"Under the Bridge" written by Brent Wonzek and directed by Andrea
Miller, is the comic relief. Here we have a troll played with rambunctious, and
comic menace by Scott Stechschulte. As trolls who live under bridges are wont to
do, he won’t let anyone pass, that is until he confronts the fiesty Maddie
(Brittany Pausch). They have a long discussion about why exactly the troll
thinks it’s his bridge. The troll inveighing against Maddie’s virtue. He thinks
she’s a loose woman, and if not, hopes he can make her one.We discover through
the argument that he’s really just someone caught in a bureaucratic snare, yet
still trying to do his job.Corpse, a half-dead one-legged man sits chained to
the bridge the whole time. Colton Watkins plays the figure with unlikely comedy.
As Maddie and the troll argue, he rummages through the contents of the girl’s
back pack, smearing himself with cold cream, applying lipstick to his troll
doll.When Maddie sets him free, the troll mocks that he can’t go anywhere with
one leg. But Maddie is undeterred. At least he’s free.The final play, "A
Hole in the World," written by James Travis and directed by Sarah Maxwell,
opens with a group of ashen-faced people, keeping vigil around the titular hole.
Bursting into the scene is John (Chase Greenlee). He starts talking, asking
questions, fidgeting. Greenlee plays him as a man who would just talk regardless
of whether he had anything to say, though now he has a tale of woe about losing
his job and the emptiness of his life.He approaches Laurie (Amber Brodie), who
tries to still him, quiet him. This place is a place of rest, she tells him.
Using increasingly harsh language, she pleads with him, then orders him, to shut
up."Who died and left you queen?" he demands. That unleashes her own
sad story.All these folks, she says, have sorry stories. He’s no different.When
one of the watchers (Liz Robertson) talks about her experience witnessing the
9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, it all comes into focus. One can give
up, but it’s better to endure.The play ends with this note, as Laurie says:
"Let’s hope."