Princeton Rep will present a live staged reading of Phyllis Purscell’s short plays, ‘From Midnight to Three.’
By: Jillian Kalonick
Jesus, a burglar, the ghost of a recently dead mother insomniacs can encounter anyone in the late night hours, in dreams or reality. Phyllis Purscell’s comedy of short plays, From Midnight to Three, explores the neuroses, conflicts and memories that people confront when they probably should be sleeping.
"I think that any writing of mine that ever sees the light of day probably comes from some very real place, some question that I’ve asked myself or some problem I’m trying to untangle," says Ms. Purscell. She’ll have the opportunity to hear From Midnight to Three come alive when Princeton Rep presents a staged reading of the piece as part of its PlayLAB Winter Series at Princeton Public Library Jan. 21. The PlayLAB series also includes staged readings of Kit Marlowe by David Grimm, a story of the rise and fall of poet and playwright Christopher Marlowe, and The Beard of Avon by Amy Freed, a comedy set early in Shakespeare’s career in the theater.
Three of the seven short pieces in From Midnight to Three focus on a long-married couple he’s a bit neurotic and insecure, she’d have no problem sleeping if he wasn’t and their verbal sparring. ("You know what would help me sleep?" "Yes, but I don’t want to." "Not that. If you’d let me read to you from my memoir." "Do I have to think it’s good?" "No." "Then OK.") Their interactions are the focus of Supporting the Sandanistas, 2:27 A.M. and New Deal. In the latter, they end up, instead of renewing their vows, making new promises to one another, such as "You will not leave third-class mail around for weeks before making the inevitable decision to throw it away" and "You won’t say ‘I’ve probably told you this story before,’ and then tell it anyway."
Another piece, The Encounter, details the bizarre and hilarious exchange between an intruder and a single woman who find their positions of control reversed. Martha stars "Jesus" and Jean, a Buddhist who isn’t afraid to put the important questions to the son of God. Last Chance has a recently deceased mother coming back as a ghost to complain to her son about the unfortunate hairdo she wore at her funeral, and to tell him to "expect death." In A Long Night’s Journey into Day, a woman named Edith is confronted with the things in her life children, her profession, her politics that she apparently forgot.
The staged reading of From Midnight to Three will be performed by local professional actors Susan Garrett and Todd Lewis. "Readings are a bit frustrating because there is so little rehearsal, but you learn an enormous amount, and when it’s read in front of an audience you learn how they react to it too," says Ms. Purscell.
Princeton Rep has hosted staged readings of her play A Killing Frost, and full productions of Romcom: A Romantic Comedy and The Temptation of Maddie Graham, which was also produced by People’s Light and Theatre in Malvern, Pa. A resident of Newtown, Pa., for 24 years, Ms. Purscell has received playwright awards from the New Jersey and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Her plays have been produced by the Women’s Project in New York, American Place Theatre and the League of Professional Theater Women.
The conversations in From Midnight to Three are so spot-on that they seem to come alive even on the page. "My children tease me because we could be walking down the street, and if I’m not listening to them, they know I’m eavesdropping on a stranger," says Ms. Purscell. "I think I became a playwright because I love dialogue. The first thing I wrote seriously with the idea of publication was a children’s book. I felt the dialogue was a strength in that, so plays were natural and that’s really what I like I like people talking to people.
"I didn’t know what to do with a play," she adds. "You don’t send plays to publishers like you do books. I think some of it was generational, and I was a woman of a certain age, and I grew up in the Midwest all those things were a hindrance to believing that I could do anything with a play. But somehow I had to write them."
From Midnight to Three by Phyllis Purscell will be given a staged reading as
part of Princeton Rep’s PlayLAB Winter Series at the Community Room at Princeton
Public Library, 65 Witherspoon St., Princeton, Jan 21, 3 p.m. Free admission.
Additional events: Kit Marlowe by David Grimm, Jan. 28, and The Beard
of Avon by Amy Freed, Feb. 18. For information, call Princeton Rep at (609)
921-3682 or e-mail [email protected].
Princeton Public Library on the Web: www.princetonlibrary.org