I attended the New Play Project's latest evening of short plays, this time on the topic of America. And, of course, that's a dauntingly broad subject for a small theatre company. What subjects would an evening of plays about America tackle? What vision of America emerges from such an evening? Based on this one evening of plays, I would say that, in Provo Utah, in December of 2007, we Americans are still pretty obsessed with 9/11. We think we're supposed to be politically polarized--left versus right, red versus blue--but we're united in our enjoyment of bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches. We're the world's only superpower, which implies that we have super powers, but those powers have made us neurotic and in need of therapy. Other issues may sometimes preoccupy us, our televised newscasts drive us to distraction with their triviality and banality. but restaurant choices abound. And, really, we're quite obsessed with 9/11, an obsession unscrupulous persons can sometimes use to their own advantage. In short, we're a nation that thinks it has serious problems, but in fact, probably doesn't. And we really do eat awfully well.

The first play of the evening was Slow News Day, by Rebeckah David. A newscaster becomes increasingly frustrated by the insipid stories his station's news staff hands him to read, finally leading him to snap and murder the show's producer. The comedy came from the ludicrous headlines that pass as news--all along the lines of 'cat coaxed down from tree.' The play had some potential, but not enough build, and although the actor reading the newscaster convincely played exasperation, his killing spree felt a trifle unmotivated.

Next up, 6, by Arisael Rivera. It's the sort of play I saw a lot in playwriting classes in the wake of 9/11--a choral exploration of the loss and heartache suffered by New Yorkers as a result of the attacks. The writing was certainly heartfelt and powerful, but my response to it was confused and resentful: why this play, why now? But then, I'm not from New York, and my recollection of 9/11 was as an event I found essentially pornographic--I spent that terrible day as a voyeur, switching from station to station, desperate for another footage fix, wanting to see the plane hit the building again. A mediated event, and not really part of my life anymore. And it's been six years. I found myself more unsettled by how dismissive I felt about the play than by the play itself. I sort of resented it, to be honest. I don't want America to be defined by 9/11 anymore.

Next came The Good Life, by NPP founder James Goldberg. A fine play, by a smart, thinking playwright. It's essentially a riff on contemporary politics and food. A couple discuss the relative virtues of eating goats' heads (yuck) and bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches (yum!), and also meanwhile the red/blue divide (which always seems backward and wrong in Utah, since Red (conservative) invokes the University of Utah team colors (the U essentially defines culturally Utah liberalism), and Blue (liberal) are BYU's team colors (and BYU is in Utah County, the most conservative county in America)). Confused? Not as confusing as American liberalism and conservativism, both of which strike James Goldberg as philosophically incoherent. And libertarianism, which James suggests is only distinguished from anarchism by social class (rich libertarians call themselves libertarians, while poor libertarians are dismissed as anarchists), and communism, which James suggests is riven by theological differences (split between Maoists, Stalinists, Leninists, Trotskyites and so on). I found the play dazzling, and wished at its conclusion that I could, right that second, enjoy a BLT. On wheat.

Speaking of food and politics, the next play was Arisael Rivera's second of the night, As Simple as That. A married couple discuss their fast food options for that evening's dinner, interrupted by their teenaged daughter, who was marked down on a paper in school, because the paper's thesis was 'school is gay.' 'Gay,' not in the sense of homosexual, but in its current usage, as a sort of all-encompassing pejorative. So it's a play about political correctness run amuck? Not really--the family's restaurant options were treated in the play as far more compelling. Again--we Americans may think we're politically divided. But, boy, we sure eat well.

Matthew Greene's Survivor's Guild was the second 9/11 play of the evening, and a very interesting counterpoint to 6. At first, Greene's play felt like another choral, boy-9/11-was-sad sort of thing. But in went a very different and interesting direction. Greene's play deals in fact with an organization called the 9/11 Survivors' Guild, founded by a woman--her name fictionalized to Deborah Moss--who claimed to have narrowly survived the collapse of the Twin Towers, and who became one of the most inspiring public speakers after the event. She founded a trust fund for the education of survivors' children, she testified before Congress, she was the public face of the families of survivors. And she was a complete fraud. She didn't work in the Towers, wasn't engaged to a man who was killed in the attacks; she just made it all up. An unsettling and powerful play.

No One's Superman closed out the evening. It was a comic piece about superheroes who seem to be attending a group therapy session--they're all neurotic, with neuroses directly related to their super powers. A female superhero with an eating disorder, for example, because she has to diet so she can look good in spandex. The idea of the play was actually a good deal funnier than its execution, but it's an intriguing concept--wouldn't all superheros be a little neurotic?

The New Play Project has now moved into the old Provo Theatre Company space, which marks a vast improvement technically over their rented digs at the Provo Library. But the basic problems of stagecraft and directing and acting chops that plagued their previous work remain unresolved. Although all of the plays had potential, I found the performances frustratingly uneven. Survivors' Guild felt badly underrehearsed and No One's Superman just didn't click comedically. I love what NPP is doing, and I consider myself their most fervent champion. I worry about their future, however, not because of any deficiencies in passion, energy, intelligence, insight or creativity, but because the acting and directing and stagecraft can't quite meet the challenges presented by the plays themselves. I saw an imperfect evening of theatre, but I also saw a full house, a young house, enjoying work by young artists with high ideals and great enthusiasm. So there's certainly room for optimism about the future of NPP. Not to mention America.