SHORT ATTENTION SPAN THEATER RETURNS TO RED BARN PLAY DETAILS AGES &

Stages Of Life

‘THREE TALL WOMEN’ RUNS THROUGH APRIL 22 AT WATERFRONT PLAYHOUSE

Holding up a mirror to our consciousness — both spoken and unspoken — is what great playwrights like Edward Albee often do to expose what it means to be human.

“Three Tall Women,” a two-act performance now on stage at Key West’s Waterfront Playhouse, is just such a reflection.

Albee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiographical think piece about a life with all its attending fears, longing, regret, you name it, is meant to teach us something about living our best life now, the show’s artistic director, Tom Thayer, said.

“I like the fact that this moment — today — is truly the best time of our lives. It’s important to realize that, and I see that message for the audience in this material,” Thayer added.

“Three Tall Women” opens to the scene of a posh bedroom, where we meet “A,” a cranky, impossibly demanding and imperious 94-year-old woman (portrayed by Playhouse alum Leslie Greene) whose health is failing. What little sympathy we initially may have for her soon fades once her angry mouth spews rhetoric of intolerance and bigotry.

“Why can’t I be nice?” she wonders at some point.

A’s long-suffering caretaker “B” (Maggie McCollester) tries hard to reign in the old lady’s offending remarks, to little success. Joining the two onstage is a third character, “C” (Jessica Miano Kruel), a legal assistant who is attempting to untangle A’s legal affairs from the jumble they have become.

The elderly widow’s words and deeds, though, aren’t just funny filler for the play’s script. At the root of the politically incorrect character’s life was Albee’s own complicated relationship with his real-life mother who rejected him early on for his homosexuality. “All I see around here are boys, boys and more boys,” A laments.

The effect of Albee’s mother’s disfavor throughout his life shows broadly in the message of “Three Tall Women.” Albee’s other works

SHORT SHOWS OFFER A ZIPPY, TRIPPY DELIGHT FOR THE ATTENTION - DEFICIENT

If you’re up for a night of quickwitted comedic microdosing, head over to the Red Barn Theatre, 319 Duval St., for a rollicking production of Short Attention Span Theatre’s “Parallel Universes.” The show features six 10-minute, one-act plays with a talented cast and crew that’s on stage through April 29.

include the Broadway hit “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” which garnered the literary legend much critical and commercial acclaim during his creative career until his passing in 2016.

The story of “Three Tall Women” brings some redemption, for the audience at least. In Act II we see A, B and C as generationally separate incarnations of a single life. C in her 20s swears not to become B at a decade older; and B hopes not to become A at 56, a person we see as a discontented woman seemingly trapped in a loveless marriage and bound by social convention. Worse, she has cast her gay son out of her sphere. The takeaway, says Thayer, is to “be like that 26-year-old. See the promise in life so you can look back with no regrets.”

The play’s costuming and set design by R. Michael Boyer is incandescent with a past portrayal of the 50ish protagonist draped in pearls and sporting a stylish satin peach strapless dress made to show the era and social status of her uppermiddle class lifestyle. Her younger carefree self as a free and open spirit wears a flowy sheath and beaded headband.

Whatever closure there is in the play offers little resolution with the estranged son. However Albee’s writing reflects how both the brightest and darkest versions of “A” converge to tell the story of a life mostly regrettably lived.

In the end, “Three Tall Women” is a story in which the true function of vanity and intolerance is only folly.

“It’s all a wild and crazy collaboration,” laughed the venue’s executive producer, Mimi McDonald, on opening night April 7. The packed house confirmed, it seems, that Key West audiences may or may not have the mental fortitude to sit through and absorb two-hour performances elsewhere.

Regardless, the zany bits will make you laugh, as well as think, said McDonald.

So, what exactly are we learning?

“Well, the performers are asking questions about life, what could happen or what could be,” explained the producer. “The humor is just part of it; we want to make people think about what truly matters in their daily lives. The directors and writers in this show plugged their own points of view and (literary) subtext into what it means to be human today. The cool costumes and the great music help to bring it all together.”

This existential journey begins with the opening act: A woman in a supermarket (played by Susannah Wells) gazes at a frozen meal package wondering why a five-for-one sale is happening at the moment. Her friend (Erin McKenna) tries to shake the shopper out of her trance-like bewilderment. Later we see a census-taker (Cassidy Mills) attempting to deconstruct the gender kaleidoscope that is the present-day LGBTQ community. Actors Arthur Crocker, Jack McDonald and Jeremy Zoma join the fun by further confusing the government worker, all of the tomfoolery eliciting paroxysms of laughter from the audience.

Other comedic vignettes include a father lying on his hospital deathbed while his grown kids bicker about who will hang around while he lingers. Serious stuff, yes, but McDonald’s crew, which includes actor Iain Wilcox, manage to find the humor in such a scenario: ”Daddy, if you need to drift off to that bright light, now may be the time,” says one of the sons who is presumably too busy in his own life to hang around the edgy scene. “We love you, we’ll miss you!”

This year’s Short Attention Span Theatre includes several short plays that explore the idea of parallel universes.

Chirps the daughter, “Why are you trying to push daddy off the ledge?”

Much of the production of “Parallel Universes” is a family affair: thespians Amber McDonald Good and her brother Jack have been in show business for years and are also Red Barn producer Mimi’s kids along with her husband Gary, the McDonald patriarch.

Writers for the material in these quickie “dramedy” pieces of “Parallel Universes” include: Ian August, Connie Bennett, Jacqueline Bircher, Jacob T. Zach, Laurie Allen and David Ives.

So if you’re feeling a bit of attention deficit syndrome coming on, head over to Red Barn Theatre in April to catch the train of the hilariously entertaining 10-minute bursts of thought pieces about life and death and our place in the universe — if there is one — mixed in with lots of laughs. The show is a lighthearted journey through metaphysical space and time and penned by playwrights who have clearly been conjuring serious and not-so-serious thoughts to these ideas.