If you?re tired of “Sex in the City” reruns, “Double X: The Bad-Ass Lands” may satisfy your fix for bold females traversing urban wild land.
Playing at Mobtown Theater, the collection of one-act plays allows audiences to peek into the lives of women living in Chicago, New York City, Seattle, Dallas and Baltimore.
The dark comedies, all written by female playwrights, tackle dramatic and shocking yet funny material.
“[The main characters] are all lonely and unstable, but the plays allow them to laugh and enjoy themselves,” Mobtown Director Dahlia Kaminsky said. “Each [character] is looking for love. Each has a sense of wishfulness.”
Kaminsky and theater Producer P.S. Lorio chose five plays from more than 100 hopefuls sent to Mobtown.
“From the pools of scripts, we looked for what spoke to us ? [plays] that were tightly written and told a story,” Lorio said.
Lorio and Kaminsky discovered that food and drink surfaced as themes in all the chosen plays, Kaminsky said. “We love to eat and drink, I guess,” she said.
One of the plays, titled “Happy Hour,” is so “desperately funny and heartbreaking,” said Susan Lev, who plays Anna, a waitress who never made it big on the stage or screen in New York City.
“[My character] is immobilized with a broken leg and shows the new girl the ropes while sitting at a table,” Lev said. Throughout her character?s monologue, she boozes while offering advice to the new waitress and belittling her.
Lev was attracted to “Double X” because each play is new, debuting in Baltimore.
“Hypocrites and Strippers” focuses on a Chicago woman who tries to fill a void in her life with sexual escapades involving strippers.
In “Pete,” a married librarian?s tumultuous affair with a Nazi unfolds. Set in Seattle, the play stars a Towson University professor, Judy Blackburn, who plays the main character, a recovering alcoholic and soccer mom in the unlikely affair, Kaminsky said. “It?s a gutsy piece.”
“Double X” is “platform for women?s voices,” Lorio said. “As playwrights, we noticed a predominant number of men seem to get produced in play competitions. This is an opportunity to get women on stage.”
IF YOU GO
“Double X: The Bad-Ass Lands”
» Venue: The Mobtown Theater, 3600 Clipper Mill Road, Studio 114, Baltimore
» Times: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, through April
» Tickets: $12, students and seniors $10
» More info: 410-467-3057, mobtownplayers.com
