Pop-Culturalist.com

The Flea Theater debuts two new one-act plays by A.R. Gurney: Ajax and Squash. Together they are called Two Class Acts. They are performed each night, separate from each other, but, if you’d like to see both of them, it’s easy to do. Running at about an hour a piece, each one-act centers on the relationship between a student and a teacher. (for more on Ajax, visit The Flea’s website here.)

Squash explores both the personal and professional relationships between a college classics professor, Dan (Dan Amboyer), one of his male students, Gerald (Rodney Richardson), that is taking his Plato Symposium, and Dan’s wife, Becky (Nicole Lowrance). When Gerald confronts Dan about his ideas and thoughts on Greek love (love of the male form, passion, etc) and Dan’s consistent classroom banter about his sport of choice—Squash—Dan is forced to confront emotions he had not thought about before and questions his own sexual identity. As Dan turns inward, his relationship with Becky suffers.

Not only does Squash explore those interpersonal relationships and the burgeoning LGBT culture of the late 1970s leading into the early 1980s, it also, in some ways, comments on traditional gender roles. As was typical of the time period, Becky is a stay-at-home mother. Dan is the breadwinner. Dan’s new department chair (whom we never see on stage) is a woman, and her character aides in the discussion of gender.

Since there is a brisk run time of one hour, the production team had to be cognizant of efficiencies. One such example was the inventive use of space—having the set as one long piece minimized scene changes. It also, inventively, showed that no matter how you try to keep parts of your life separate (i.e. Dan’s home life from his school life; the Squash locker room from home; the bar from home), life has a funny way of bleeding them all together.

In short, an hour watching Squash is time well-spent. Not only will you be entertained, but you’ll also be intellectually stimulated.

Photo Credit: Joan Marcus