SFist Reviews: Lady Grey (in ever lower light) and Other Plays at Cutting Ball Theater

We're always glad to find interesting new work being performed around town, though we don't make it out to enough of it — and the latest production from the Cutting Ball Theater, Lady Grey (in ever lower light) and Other Plays by Will Eno certainly qualifies. It's a trio of short plays, all pretty mercifully short — and we say that only because when one listens to dialogue and monologue as dense and unique as Eno's, brevity makes one appreciate it more. The first, the title play, is a monologue performed by Danielle O’Hare with great restraint, that sketches, almost simultaneously, a portrait of a melancholy woman in an almost happy marriage, as well as the young girl she once was. The structure of the monologue is hard to describe, and is all the better for it, featuring some direct addressing of the audience and plenty of jumps through time. Suffice it to say we were, at several points, confused, but the piece came together like a long poem, and we were entranced by O'Hare's quietness and diction throughout.

The second play turned out to be our favorite: Intermission. In it, two couples, one older and one younger, sit side by side in theater seats during the intermission of a play. It almost functions like a piece of flash fiction, in which we get both a celebration and satire of a night at the theater, as well as some brief insight into the lives of the characters, all in what seems like a few short pages. It's a witty short piece, with the standout performance (and most of the best dialogue) coming from Gwyneth Richards as Mrs. Smith.