The titular work, Rooms by the Sea (painting, left), opens the second act, and is by far the most unsettling and least satisfying, though perhaps the best acted. It is the only painting that doesn't have any people in it, so, forgive the pun-Squirek is working from a dramatically blank canvas. The sky's the limit then, but what he filled it with is perplexing, annoying and so lacking in content that it would be easy to dismiss. That is until you watch two of the area's finest young actors have a go at it. Jaynie (Tiffany James) and Mike (Reese Thornberry) are lovers and friends. Something has happened (we never even come close to knowing what it is, trust me) and an angry Jaynie wants to either separate for the day ("Take a walk on the beach!" she demands easily 50 times, no exaggeration) or just go home. Mike, the dolt man that he is, doesn't get the hint, and argues his way into more trouble by pleading "what is wrong?, "what is happening?" over and over and over. Basically, there are about 6 lines of dialogue either repeated verbatim or changes with synonyms. If it weren't for the riveting performances of James and Thornberry, I'd be angry about the 15 minutes of my life I'll never get back thanks to this scene. Ms. James takes silent acting to a new level, and says more about deep seeded anger as she quietly peels fruit than any five pages of dialogue might, and Mr. Thornberry does the impossible. He makes each endlessly repeated line new and fresh. By the way, the argument topic is neither revealed nor resolved. And you really don't care.
The final scene, based on Gas (painting, right), takes place during the Kennedy years, where we still clung to innocence, even as the world threatened to annihilate itself. It is a charming scene, almost Norman Rockwell like. Kids run off to play ball and to see a Korean war veteran pitch, while a fill up at the pump was $4.09, and $4.50 got you the gas, a pack of smokes and a tip for the attendant. Young Andrew Lee as Tommy, is a charming actor, very real, and not cutesy, and he has an excellent chemistry with Joan Crooks, who plays his Grama. Ms. Crooks has that innocent, morally upright characterization nicely in check. Michael Butscher, as Mr. Jeffrey, an older townsman, comes in to "set a spell" and is the embodiment of small town values. Then he launches into a rather pointed (and uncharacteristically forced) speech about how war throughout American History makes little sense, and how America should keep its nose out of another country's business. He squints as he tries to figure out our interest in that new hot spot, Vietnam. It is a very thinly veiled anti-war sentiment, applicable to today, and just adds to a growing list of tired anti-Iraq rhetoric in plays. Everyone, of course, is entitled to have their say on the matter. So I'll have mine. Enough already!
And so Rooms by the Sea both succeeds and fails. The concept is excellent, the staging superb and the acting mostly good. The decade spanning works, and if I cared more for some of the characters, leaving us unfinished in each scene is a novel way to keep the audience engaged. What is missing is a through line. Maybe a common theme is needed? Mr. Squirek has something here. Let's hope he keeps working on it. Every picture benefits from a nice frame.
PHOTOS: Courtesy of Mark Squirek. TOP to BOTTOM: Michael Butscher, Kerry Brady and Tony Colavito in "Conference at Night"; Reese Thornberry and Tiffany James in "Rooms by the Sea"; and Joan Crooks and Andrew Lee in "Gas".
