Here's the thought behind tonight's PURE Theatre's A Perfect Ten show at The Cigar Factory: Compose an anthology out of 10 10-minute plays by different writers. It's an elegant concept.
But life is messy: Work schedules, emergencies and complications eventually reduced the number of plays in the set to eight. The show was "evolving" all the way up to the end, said PURE co-artistic director Rodney Lee Rogers.
Which, in a round-about way, marks the heart of its charm. On a night when the city's other live performance options included Don Giovanni, Amajuba and DollHouse, the ensemble cast over at PURE was putting together a night of risky new work by unknown writers. The show had no promotional budget, only a vague relationship to Piccolo Fringe and didn't even show up on the printed festival calendar.
So of course I wanted to be there. I'm a sucker for the underdog.
And yet... the 6 p.m. show filled everything but the overflow section, and the 9 p.m. show played to a full house. And sure, maybe that had something to do with the large cast... but on the other hand, both of the last two PURE pieces I've attended have been shoulder-to-shoulder hits. One more and it's an official trend...
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