An attempt to recall a memory while a memory fails.
Artworks that come to life after a museum closes.
A Ku Klux Klan robe that turns pink after it is washed by a disapproving wife.
Those and six other stories, told in 10-minute snippets, make up the Winding Road Theatre Ensemble’s first “Eight 10s in Tucson,” a festival of plays. And yes, there were nine, not eight. Lucky us.
Winding Road solicited scripts from around the country, and whittled some 300 down to those staged.
When you’ve nine plays, you are usually bound to get a few lame ones. And while some were more successful than others, none were lame.
There was the sweet “The Parrots of Heaven” by Atlanta-area playwright Evan Guilford-Blake, in which a young Iranian man attempts to tell a male friend, a high school athlete, how he feels about him. Rather than being cruel in his rejection, the athlete makes it clear that while he doesn’t feel the same, he still considers his classmate a friend.
Or the chilling “Schrödinger’s Gun” by Greg A. Smith from Cleveland. A white police officer in training sits across the table from a black officer with a briefcase in front of him. The trainee is told there may be a gun in the case and if there is, he will be shot. What will he do?
And the very funny but disturbing “Arguing with Toasters” by Spokane playwright Matthew Weaver has four women discussing the abuse they have suffered at the hands of toasters. It is sort of like hitting pillows during Gestalt therapy. You know that pillow is a stand-in for someone.
Here’s hoping this festival becomes an annual event — it’s a reminder of the prodigious playwriting talent out there, the accomplished actors and directors we have here, and it exposes Tucsonans to new and exciting works.
It continues for one more weekend. Performances are 7:30 p.m. May 2 and 3; 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. May 4; and 2 p.m. May 5 at the Temple of Music and Art Cabaret Theatre, 330 S. Scott Ave. Tickets are $28 at 401-3626 or windingroadtheater.org.
