In this bill of one-act plays, three playwrights explore the detritus left behind when a romance passes its sell-by date. In playwright Matt Sauter’s “The Divorce Party,” young wife Monica (Juliet Quentin Archard) abruptly announces her desire to divorce her lumpen husband, Terry (Mike Daily). The couple’s impressionable young daughter, Annie (Anne Asland), looks on in horror as her parents then go through with a previously planned birthday party. Director Bonnie McNeil’s feverishly paced staging gives the constantly flowing venom additional zest. Asland is heartbreaking as the long-suffering daughter — and she has some touching moments with Andrew McReynolds, playing her mentally handicapped cousin. In Alex Aves’ complex breakup chamber piece, “The Other Side of Everything,” a young artist (Aves again) lures her married ex-lover (Nick Cimiluca) over to her apartment in a last-ditch effort to get back with him — or die trying. Director May Quigley Goodman’s staging crackles with rage and despair, with Aves in particular offering a desperate turn as the damaged lover. Playwright Allan Smith’s plodding “Twice on Sunday,” in which a young man (Jeremia Heitman), paralyzed from the legs down following a suicide attempt, is nursed by his generous sister (Alison Evans), lacks the plot needed to rise above its consistently glum mood. Director Roger Mathey’s inert and static staging diffuses any potential tension or emotion the piece might be able to engender.
Fridays-Sundays, 8 p.m. Starts: March 7. Continues through April 6, 2008

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