(Enlarge) Steve Lichtenstein as Jarvis is anything but entertained by rehab center activities director Connamarra Trinkwalder (Elaina Telitsina) in “Jarvis Legend’s Borrowed Skin” by local playwright Julie Lewis. A production of the Theatrical Mining Company, it continues weekends through July 13 at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland.

Baltimore Playwrights Festival 2008

The strained relationship between a father and son is the closely examined subject in Ty DeMartino's "Finding Fossils" at the Fells Point Corner Theatre. This entry in the 27th annual Baltimore Playwrights Festival dramatically succeeds because of the tight focus it keeps on family matters.

Vincent is a recent widower who is still grieving the loss of his wife. Indeed, her wheelchair sits as a visible reminder of her on the porch of Vincent's modest summer house on a lake somewhere north of New York City. Vincent tends to keep these feelings bottled up, which may explain why he offers grouchy commentary about so many other subjects.

As Vincent, Bobby DeAngelo gives a convincing performance that seems as thoroughly inhabited as that rather shabby house. He puts across the extent to which Vincent is indulging himself as a loner who listens to oldies on the radio, conveniently has his booze supply next to the radio, and also has been known to point a rifle in the general direction of the rambunctious honeymooners literally setting off fireworks on the other side of the lake on the Fourth of July.

DeAngelo's gruff inhabitation of this role may prompt you to think that an actor such as Peter Falk has taken up residence there. His performance anchors a production that's not always as persuasive as it could be.

Vincent's solitude is broken by the visit of his gay son, Gus, who lives in New York City and works as the director of a TV soap opera. Considering Vincent's conservative nature, you'd expect that the tension between the two of them would have its source in Gus's domestic situation. However, that's just one item on a long list dating back decades.

Gus grew up close to his mother and had strained relations with his more emotionally distant father. That lifelong awkward relationship between father and son reached a particularly tense stage when Vincent brought his wife to die at the summer cottage, basically denying Gus the chance to say goodbye to his mother.

Andy Kirtland gives a heartfelt performance as Gus, but it seems like the actor is still getting a handle on what sort of personality he wants to project as a financially successful character whose lifestyle is so at odds with the values expressed by his father.

In any event, the father-son casting is slightly problematic. Although DeAngelo makes an earnest attempt to become the upper-middle-aged Vincent, the scenes between Vincent and Gus serve as a reminder that these two actors don't seem far enough apart in age.

Fortunately, the essentially capable performers and the playwright's devotion to the family's psychological baggage make for an absorbing chamber drama that happens to be set outside a house in the woods. The play is at its most enjoyable when the father and son revisit familiar conversational topics, such as debates about how best to prepare certain Italian dishes.

The only other character is a summer home neighbor, Johnny, whose affable presence serves as a buffer between the sparring father and son. It's a smartly scripted move, because it prevents the play from becoming too claustrophobic. DeMartino somewhat expands the conversational topics in a play that understandably tends to hit the instant replay button on old father-son disputes.

Although Richard Peck has yet to find the right balance between broad comedy and subtle gesture in his performance as Johnny, he's nice to have around here. It's yet another instance in which the cast and director Alexander D. Carney need to make minor adjustments in this mostly solid production.

When Vincent, Gus and Johnny talk into the night, there's a keen sense of shared history. A discussion late in the play about fossils serves as a reminder that old stories brought to the surface can have fresh appeal.

"Finding Fossils" runs through July 13 at Fells Point Corner Theatre, at 251 S. Ann St., in Baltimore. Performances are Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 7 p.m. Tickets are $17, $15 for seniors and students. Call 410-276-7837 or go to www.fpct.org.

Lewis play gets under the 'Skin'

A playwright trying to make his characters come alive on the page may find they come to life in disturbing ways. That's the metaphysical nightmare facing the playwright who is the main character in Julie Lewis' "Jarvis Legend's Borrowed Skin," a Baltimore Playwrights Festival entry being presented by Theatrical Mining Company at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland.

This sort of theater about theater is epitomized by Luigi Pirandello's "Six Characters in Search of an Author." Think of Lewis' slight and silly riff on such themes as "Pirandello on Acid."

The playwright character, Jarvis Legend (Steve Lichtenstein), has a dull job and what seems like a boringly typical social life. Presumably realizing that's the case, Jarvis wins a grant that gives him time off from work in order to open up creatively and write a play. A visiting official from the granting organization, Marla M (Cory Stine), quickly realizes what Jarvis and the audience already know: very little of the play has been written and a deadline is fast approaching.

As for the play-within-the-play, it's called "Borrowed Time." Whenever Jarvis sits down at the laptop computer in his living room, the scenes he imagines come to life on the stage around him. "Borrowed Skin" is a science-fiction script involving an underground-dwelling society that stays down there to avoid the too-hot sun now scalding the Earth's surface.

The imagined figures brought to life include a blue-wigged prostitute, Vinetta (Nancy Flores); Vinetta's two children; one of Vinetta's clients, Alfario (Chris Magorian); and a scientific expert, Dr. Sizemore (Joseph Dunn).

The early scenes in this production are staged by director Nancy Murray so that Jarvis sits at his computer and the characters remain several feet away as they act out the scenes he imagines. However, all distinctions soon blur and the characters freely interact with Jarvis and implore him to finish the play in which they appear.

These cartoonishly surreal scenes are only sporadically funny, and they point to a major problem with the plot in "Jarvis Legend's Borrowed Skin."

When Jarvis' girlfriend, Liza (Jessica Taylor), worries about how he interacts with characters only he can see and hear, she proceeds to have him institutionalized.

The play's noble thematic point is that Jarvis' creative impulse is being suppressed by the well-intentioned conventional people around him, but let's have a reality check here and state that maybe the world would be a better place without Jarvis among its playwrights.

Jarvis' "Borrowed Skin" is a lousy play, and Lewis' "Jarvis Legend's Borrowed Skin" is internally conflicted in that it both has campy fun with the awfulness of Jarvis' play and yet also makes a lofty claim on behalf of Jarvis' right to express himself through writing a play. Let's acknowledge that creative right, but must it be inflicted upon an audience? Don't we have rights too?

This play is vexing, but at least the Theatrical Mining Company production knows how to have fun with it. Steve Lichtenstein conveys Jarvis' nerdy exasperation so ardently that you almost expect to see steam coming out of either his computer or his ears.

The actors portraying his sci-fi characters have a good time vamping in their sometimes outlandish outfits; and among the straight characters in Jarvis' everyday life, the highlight is Elaina Telitsina's endearing performance as a relentlessly cheerful mental health professional with the improbable name of Connammarra Trinkwalder.

Arguably the real star of this show is the sound design by Max Garner, which is a sophisticated mix of sci fi-suitable synthesizer effects and venerable rock songs. The musical conjuring up of David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust persona is such an aural treat that it's much better than a lot of the theatrical borrowing going on in this play.

"Jarvis Legend's Borrowed Skin" runs through July 13 in LeClerc Hall at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland, at 4701 N. Charles St., in Baltimore. Performances are Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. (no show on July 4), Sunday at 7 p.m. Tickets are pay as you can on Thursday, $12 on Friday and Saturday, and 2 for 1 on Sunday. Call 410-982-6979 or go to www.originalplays.com/tmc.

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