NEW PLAY, HOORAY

posted by James Reel

    Critics never review plays before the official opening night, except when they attend that oddity called the “press preview” (which does not exist in Tucson). Nevertheless, I accepted an invitation from some people putting on a play who hoped for some coverage before the end of the show’s two-weekend run. They were confident that they’d have something good to present to me in their rehearsal hall, and they were right:

    New House, New Dog is a new play by Tucsonan Toni Press-Coffman, billed as "a comedy about pets, painting and aging parents."
    Well, the pets and painting are there mainly for alliteration; they're actually almost incidental to this play, which does, indeed, focus on how adults cope with their difficult, elderly progenitors.
    And comedy? Yes, it's funny, but the humor is based on character and social interaction and reaction, not snappy jokes. And like the theater works of French Romantic playwright Alfred de Musset, Press-Coffman's comedy is just sufficiently uneasy that, by the end, it slides imperceptibly into drama.
    The play opens this weekend; last week, I attended a run-through in a bare rehearsal room minus lights, music and any other stage trappings but the essential furniture and props. Because the production was a work in progress, it can't be subjected to a regular review. But, unfinished as the show was, the script, actors and director had already come together so securely that I'm already as enthusiastic about this work as I was about Press-Coffman's That Slut! (see "Sexual Healing," Sept. 4, 2003).