Best of these three was Luna Gale. Not a promising subject maybe, an American social worker dealing with a case of neglect of a baby by her druggie young parents. But actually although serious it was by no means grim, and constantly fascinating as the story developed, with the nutty Christian grandmother, her almost as nutty pastor, and the novel line of the social worker suggesting the daughter claim she was abused by her mother's first husband as a way of preventing the woman adopting her grand daughter. Highlight was the pastor helping the social worker pray in her office - truly toe-curling.
But the best thing I can say about it was that despite making one think of social issues, it was always credible and you never felt you were being preached to.
Sunspots was a rather lovely tale of a nerdy and semi-autistic young man who gets into a relationship with a girl he had been spying on with his late father's telescope. Like Luna Gale, a number of twists in the plot keep it interesting, including that his father was spying on the same house rather than looking at sunspots. A gay older brother, put upon older sister and mother with dementia complete the cast. The dotty mother appearing with her vacuum cleaner at all the worst moments was a nice leit motif.
36 Phone Calls was the least impressive of the plays in the Downstairs theatre. Not that it was bad, but merely disappointing. One man (Lee Ross) plays are always hard to carry off. This had a promising idea. We were to learn of how this accountant's life was falling apart through a series of phone calls, just him calling or being called. He was separated from his wife, so we had calls with his wife, his kids, his lover as well as a dodgy client and mates. Hearing only one side of the calls was a good idea. Its best bits were a few good funny lines, and a rather touching conversation of instructing his young son how to cook pancakes. It was good, but not that good.
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