One Act Festival shows off impressive range of talent
Drama students perform a series on one-act plays, four in total, that impressed audiences and showed an impressive range of acting skills. Photo by Natalie Hurd.
The 2019 One Act Festival at AHS opened its doors at 6:30 p.m. on Mar. 28. The One Act Festival displayed comedy and drama throughout its four acts: La Mouche, Gossip, Cheating Death, and Swim Forever in the Erne. Of the four different one-act performances, some featured more comedy, while others portrayed serious dramatic themes. Added together, the whole festival was enjoyable to the audiences.
Throughout the performances, the audience showed signs of being engrossed during the dramatic moments, and also having a few laughs during the lighter acts. The festival started with one of the four showings, a comedy called La Mouche, which is about a customer complaining about a fly in his soup. Then the waiters come out to deal with the situation, with the situation escalating to drastic proportions. La Mouche starred Alex DeFraga as the customer, Cayleb Henderson as Pierre, and Nate Reyes as Jacques. At one point, Henderson (as Pierre) screamed out, “I will go kill the waiter,” and the audience burst out in laughter, following up with Pierre jumping onto Jacques. The first act was hilarious for the crowd to watch.
Gossip started with the image of a red flash with multiple background characters dressed in black. Then the main character, called Gossip, who was played by Ki-Lin Baribeau, appeared. Gossip manipulates others with lies until she loses all her power. The audience was silent and focused when performers declared, “Gossip has died,” even though she later came out to say, “Everyone is famous in one life or another.”
The next play was called Swim Forever in the Erne. A girl named Mary is conflicted between her sea mother “Mhara,” and her real mother “Anna” who comes out to check up on her. The enticing story focused on how the characters resolved their conflicts was engaging.
The final play, Cheating Death, featured Payton Raine as Death interrupting a group therapy session to pick up a person who is about to die. However, Death picks the wrong person. The group starts including Death in their therapy sessions, and he realizes later that he was the one who needed some group therapy. The crowd seemed to enjoy the play, the characters getting a few laughs, especially Alex DeFraga (playing Bob) stating out of nowhere, “Instead of animals being put in cages in the zoos, how about the animals roam free and we put people in cages? There was an enjoyable balance of comedy and drama in the last play.
The One Act Play Festival offered a great mix of comedy and drama, with engaging characters throughout all four plays, the audience enjoying every part. Drama students showcased a wide range of talent.
Preparation for the One Act Festival started in early January. Students also created the black and white background with the iconic comedy and tragedy theater masks. “After watching this play for so long, I still get a few laughs out,” said drama teacher Ms. Volpa.