Evening in park entertaining, diverse

“The Dive,” “One Dress,” and “Rock On” at the Katherine Gianaclis Park for the Arts aren’t exactly grown-up plays. They’re “moments” of I’m not quite sure what. They’re worth seeing less for what they achieve than what they might become.

The outdoor opener, Mvnte July’s “One Dress,” gives us a transvestite named Smiles. She singles out people from the audience, making them humorously uncomfortable. It’s not long before we find out the unpleasant reason she got her name, and why she’s about to give it up. This could be a wrenching story about self-identity if director Sara Fontaine and likable actor Geo Nikols would pump up the self-mocking tone, tune down the pathos and give the journey a natural course.

The audience moves into the living room for a comically inane bit of kitchen-table conversation between two not especially articulate men. In Dave Surratt’s “Rock On,” Albert (Ernie Curcio) reveals to his friend Mark (John Beane) that when he was a kid he used to rock. It’s not what we think he means. After Albert exposes his vulnerabilities, he becomes aggressive in criticizing what he sees as Mark’s faults. Surratt, director Daneal Doerr and cast build a mountain of humorous Pinter-esque tension that never lets up. I don’t think it really goes anywhere, but it’s a chance to get a glimpse of four top-crafted people having fun for the sake of fun.

We move to the auditorium for Erik Amblad’s “The Dive,” (directed by Mundana Ess-Haghabadi) where two men named Larry (Amblad and Surratt) pass slow time in a faded drinking hole. The entrance of a happy go-lucky kid (Drew Yonemori) seems to disturb our Larrys. It’s no surprise that this dive turns out to be a land of failed dreams. Amblad’s dialogue is clean, well-paced and surprising. But the more I understood what was going on, the less I wanted to.

It all makes for an entertainingly “little” and diverse evening. The first play is a story trying to figure out a way to be told. The other two are exercises in style by writers who, I suspect, are more in love with form than content. But they are talents and demand attention.

Surratt recently gave up his position as CityLife theater critic to become active in local theater. His work here as playwright and actor proves he has much to contribute on the other side of the fence.

Anthony Del Valle can be reached at DelValle@aol.com. You can write him c/o Las Vegas Review-Journal, P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125.