" I must confess that after being bombarded with all this high-minded,
high-concept theater, the only piece I felt genuine affection for was Arthur
Kopit's satirical divertissement, Chad Curtis, Lost Again, his profane, semipornographic
send-up of movie serials. It involved a young boy who receives a secret message
from God, only to be hunted down for it for the rest of his life by an evil
priest and a merciless warlord (Mark Mineart). It was slickly staged by Constance
Grappo, in three 10-minute segments spaced over two days, and had no redeeming
intellectual value. I couldn't stop laughing."
" Well-known playwright Arthur Kopit... had some fun this time around
with some formula-based works. He wrote three 10-minute plays inspired by
old movie thrillers and soap operas. Chad Curtss, Lost Again is an old-fashioned
cliffhanger whose central, directionally-challenged character, ...finds himself
in increasingly precarious scrapes. He's challenged by dark forces of many
stripes -- a shape-shifting demon called Ensingflaggnn and the dastardly General
Zoltan Zarko (Mark Mineart). Chad Curtis is full of over-the-top melodrama
and ridiculous, tongue-in-cheek narration. The actors, virtually all of whom
were in other Humana productions, were obviously having a blast doing these
outrageous bits. I saw Part 1: "The Mysterious Message," at 2 p.m. Friday,
Part 2: "Terror Incognita" at 10:45 a.m. Saturday, Part 3, "Revelations,"
at noon on Sunday. There were several chances to see all three in one sitting
of about an hour. But continuity was not really essential -- the introductory
slides numbered the episodes 1, 5 and 14, so you simply assumed that much
was happening that you'd missed. But what no one missed was the hilarity evoked
by the flat-out silliness onstage. Chad Curtiss was the best comic material
at this year's Humana Festival.
