The result is a lively two-week bazaar, with critics, agents, talent scouts and artistic directors from all over the country and abroad. On critics weekend, there was also one panel discussion, a stimulating discussion of international theater festivals, with producers from Toronto, Bogota, Dublin and Brooklyn. Mainly, this year, everyone was curious to see the new man in charge, but Humana always has a relaxed, camp-time atmosphere that tempers judgment with the sheer pleasure of a crowd of theater lovers celebrating new plays. Some critics expect to leave Humana with a new take on the zeitgeist, some theme or mode or new wave that can be detected bubbling up in the theatrical heartland. But really, it's just a grab bag.
Sets vary from sumptuous to spare, but direction and acting are at a high level.
Phyllis Somerville and Monica Koskey played Big 8 and Shedevil, two women competing for the boyish charms of ingenuous Leo Kittay as Rob Bob. This wordy poetic allegory, with a fetching score by Michael Roth, is set in a vast metaphysical Rhode Island, where white hegemony is indicted in the person of the eccentric and exploitative Ring family. Wellman's poetry is sometimes striking and often challenging. Occasionally it makes its parable of domineering imperialism too bald. But Lisa Peterson's lovely, dreamy staging created lasting images to focus the meandering text.