Stark Raving Theatre’s Second Annual Cold Comedy Concoction has a humanitarian goal: to transform wintertime chills into warmth by keeping audiences laughing at four original, cold-themed one acts. On the night I saw the production, though, it was 31 degrees outside, and the half-hearted chuckles elicited by the show were no substitute for gloves and a scarf.
The production brings together four actors, four directors, and four playwrights—a combination that highlights both the versatility of the cast and the clunkiness of the scripts. The show opens with Ebbe Roe Smith’s shrill and overlong “Deep Inc.,” about a woman (Sarah Dresser) who keeps waking her husband (Gary Norman) from his cryogenic deep freeze to ask him questions like, “Do you know where I put my keys?” and “Do I look fat?” It’s painfully gimmicky, but things improve slightly from there. The second piece, “Sleeping with Squirrels,” features the evening’s funniest moment, a bear-on-human sex scene between Norman and Erin Matley.
“The Nightmare of Lou’s Perilous Protracted Pizza Predicament” continues last year’s Cold Comedy tradition of offering one play written by a local high schooler. “Nightmare’s” plot is confusing and full of two-dimensional characters—but then, so is high school. Some credit is due to playwright Andrew W. Metcalf for introducing the term “cum dumpster” to Portland’s theater-going audience.
In the evening’s closer, “At the End of the Day,” the action takes place inside of a refrigerator; the hero is an angst-ridden slice of leftover pizza (the endearing Nathan Gale) named Sam. Sam shares the fridge with a lump of blue cheese (Dresser), a seafaring pickle (the hilarious Norman), and a sexy carrot (Matley, again). The plot revolving around an existentialist pizza slice is clever, and the characters funny.
Aside from occasional laughs like “End of the Day,” however, most of the material in Comedy falls flat—and the sight of skilled actors struggling to make the best of half-assed material never fails to leave me cold. ALISON HALLETT