Vital Theatre Company: Short Plays and One-Acts

On Theatre Row, the Vital Theatre Company continues to produce the works of emerging playwrights. This year’s festival of short plays and one-acts was by far their most challenging.

In PORT AUTHORITY, a woman sees her son off to college, only to encounter her own mother, the resident bag lady. Jim Doyle’s intimate, comic portrayal of two women proves the time-honored realization "like mother like daughter". The dysfunctional family comes to blows, yet again, in Richard Cottrell’s HAPPY MEAL. Set in a recognizable fast food joint, one family resolves its bitter differences by getting a divorce.

A certain sense of the macabre pervades the one-acts I saw, just a few of the festival’s month-long series. Beginning in December Vital Children’s Theatre Company will perform a classic piece for young audiences THE SNOW MAIDEN.

That’s This Week Off-Broadway. I’m Isa Goldberg.