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, \u201cAll in the Timing,\u201d written by David Ives and directed by Henry Kaplan (Form VI). The show typically features a series of six comedic short plays, however, Kaplan\u2019s cast performed three, \u201cSure Thing,\u201d \u201cWords, Words, Words\u201d and \u201cThe Philadelphia.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The show opens with \u201cSure Thing,\u201d a one-act play featuring actors Wesley Mitchell (Form V), Meredith Metz (Form III) and Clem Schonfeld (Form VI). Mitchell and Metz\u2019s 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\u2019s character, Betty, explains how she detests Faulkner\u2019s \u201cThe Sound and the Fury\u201d while only a few sentences later she is singing Faulkner\u2019s praises. The two later discuss the necessity of having important experiences at the right time with Mitchell\u2019s character, Bill, uttering the titular words, \u201cIt\u2019s all in the timing.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The scene quickly shifts to \u201dWords, 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 \u201cthree monkeys typing into infinity will sooner or later produce [Shakespeare\u2019s] \u2018Hamlet\u2019\u201d Baked into this comedy, is Ives\u2019s 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\u2019s Swifty rails against the \u201cevil\u201d Dr. Rosenbaum while Kanner\u2019s Milton unknowingly rewrites his namesake\u2019s \u201cParadise Lost\u201d and Gold\u2019s Kafka repetitively types the letter \u201ck.\u201d As Swifty dramatically plots Rosenbaum\u2019s downfall, the scene closes with Kafka typing out the opening sequence of \u201cHamlet,\u201d <\/em>\u201cAct One, Scene One, Elsinore Castle Denmark\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The final scene in Kaplan\u2019s production of \u201cAll in the Timing,\u201d \u201cThe Philadelphia,\u201d 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 \u201cSure Thing\u201d 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; \u201cinside of what we know as reality, there are these pockets, these black holes called Philadelphias\u201d and that \u201cthe best thing you can do is wait it out.\u201d In a Philadelphia you\u2019ll always get the opposite of what you ask for, so, taking Al\u2019s 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 \u201ccaught\u201d his friend\u2019s Philadelphia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When asked about his experience working on this show, Mitchell explained, \u201cthe text itself \u201cAll In The Timing\u201d 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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, \u201cAll in the Timing,\u201d written by David Ives and directed by Henry Kaplan (Form VI). The show typically features a series of six comedic short plays, however, Kaplan\u2019s cast performed three, \u201cSure Thing,\u201d \u201cWords, Words, Words\u201d and \u201cThe Philadelphia.\u201d\u00a0 The show opens with \u201cSure Thing,\u201d a one-act<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":347,"featured_media":9782,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[319,347,318],"tags":[],"coauthors":[500],"class_list":["post-9781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-community","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/fn-e1717369177762.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/347"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9781"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9783,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9781\/revisions\/9783"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9781"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=9781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}