B-Sides From the A-List

B-Sides From the A-List

ACC Mainstage Theater,

1212 Rio Grande, 223-3240

Through April 23

Running time: 2 hr.

Theatregoers will fall into two categories regarding Austin Community College Department of Drama's B-Sides From the A-List: those who want to understand what's going on and those for whom "getting it" isn't as important as thinking about what it might mean. It's the second group that's going to have more fun here.

The show is a collection of short plays from four playwrights who are sometimes assigned the label of "absurdist," a movement that's less of a movement and more a bunch of writers who did kind of similar things with meaning and form. Often they backed away from linear storylines, at least in the way we're accustomed to seeing them in sitcoms and such. They played with language and used nonsense to paint a typically bleak picture of the world. All of them lived through historical events in the 20th century that brought them to question the traditional Western Judeo-Christian model for viewing life and death.

In other words, wait until after the show to start drinking.

The four writers featured here are Eugène Ionesco, Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, and Edward Albee. The plays feature the human condition from a variety of angles: how we communicate, how we strive for something better, how we decline. None of this is particularly cheerful, but it is challenging, and that brings a different sort of satisfaction with it.

Of particular interest is the rendition of Beckett's "Act Without Words I," which features a creation from Austin's premier puppet master, Connor Hopkins. If played by a single performer, the actor in this play is flung about and jerked to and fro, so the puppetry treatment is an intriguing take. "The Sandbox," one of Edward Albee's earlier works, also grabs at the imagination with simple yet effective tableaux.

Though the actors' technical abilities vary widely across the evening, it's clear that all of the casts understand what they're trying to do – and in a college theatre program, that's a triumph in itself. The production places the audience onstage, creating a more intimate setting than the ACC Main­stage Theater usually affords, although try to sit near the front. Without raked seating, the back two-thirds of the audience must crane their necks to see the action for many of the shows.

There's a category lacking from the long-enough-as-it-is Austin Critics Table awards each spring: program notes. Director W.T. Bryant's efficient two-word notes for "The Sandbox" get the job done quite nicely. Program notes have their place, but on occasion it's good to get out of the way and let the show speak for itself.