If you heard the ringing of a bell last weekend, odds are you were in the Alex Cohen Theater watching the final studio theater production of the year, “All in the Timing,” written by David Ives and directed by Henry Kaplan (Form VI). The show typically features a series of six comedic short plays, however, Kaplan’s cast performed three, “Sure Thing,” “Words, Words, Words” and “The Philadelphia.”
The show opens with “Sure Thing,” a one-act play featuring actors Wesley Mitchell (Form V), Meredith Metz (Form III) and Clem Schonfeld (Form VI). Mitchell and Metz’s characters meet in a restaurant and proceed to have a conversation that is interrupted every few lines by Schonfeld ringing a bell. At each ring, the characters start the scene again, working through every possible combination of responses until they are in perfect agreement. For example, at one point in the play Metz’s character, Betty, explains how she detests Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury” while only a few sentences later she is singing Faulkner’s praises. The two later discuss the necessity of having important experiences at the right time with Mitchell’s character, Bill, uttering the titular words, “It’s all in the timing.”
The scene quickly shifts to ”Words, Words, Words,” where actors Jesse Gold (Form IV), Amadeus Belafonte (Form IV) and Leo Kanner (Form IV) sit in front of three typewriters, each typing furiously in various strange positions. Early into the scene, it is revealed that the trio are chimpanzees in a lab experiment where the mysterious scientist Dr. Rosenbaum attempts to prove that “three monkeys typing into infinity will sooner or later produce [Shakespeare’s] ‘Hamlet’” Baked into this comedy, is Ives’s knowledge of classic literature; unbeknownst to them, the chimpanzees are named after three historical literary figures, Irving (Swifty) Lazar, John Milton and Franz Kafka. In a hilarious series of events, Belafonte’s Swifty rails against the “evil” Dr. Rosenbaum while Kanner’s Milton unknowingly rewrites his namesake’s “Paradise Lost” and Gold’s Kafka repetitively types the letter “k.” As Swifty dramatically plots Rosenbaum’s downfall, the scene closes with Kafka typing out the opening sequence of “Hamlet,” “Act One, Scene One, Elsinore Castle Denmark…”
The final scene in Kaplan’s production of “All in the Timing,” “The Philadelphia,” is set in an alternate universe where places such as Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Cleveland are more than just cities, they are mindsets. This one act features the same cast as “Sure Thing” with Mitchell portraying the character of Al, Schonfeld playing Mark and Metz as the Waitress. When Mark arrives at a cafe having an unusually bad day, Al explains that he must be stuck in a Philadelphia; “inside of what we know as reality, there are these pockets, these black holes called Philadelphias” and that “the best thing you can do is wait it out.” In a Philadelphia you’ll always get the opposite of what you ask for, so, taking Al’s advice, Mark orders a hamburger by asking for a pork chop and french fries when he orders a baked potato. Hilarity ensues and Al storms out, having “caught” his friend’s Philadelphia.
When asked about his experience working on this show, Mitchell explained, “the text itself “All In The Timing” is fantastic, and the playwright David Ives crafts dialogue and characters that feel extremely real and relatable but also over the top comical. Working with Henry and the cast was great as well, as he really helped all of us connect to these characters and explore them as much as possible considering how short the individual plays were.”
