By Fredric Dannen
“A ten-minute play is a streak of theatrical lightning. It doesn’t last long, but its power can stand your hair on end.”
So begins the preface to Take Ten, a 1997 anthology of 10-minute plays edited by Eric Lane and Nina Shengold. The playwrights represented in the book include masters of the long form, such as Tony Kushner, John Guare, and August Wilson, but even marquee-name authors can stumble when it comes to the 10-minute form, which requires the utmost economy. Having seen so many 10-minute plays that simply do not work, the anthology made a believer out of me. It includes two personal favorites, David Ives’ absurdist The Philadelphia, and one of the rare masterpieces of the form, the terrifying Helen at Risk by the little-known playwright Dana Yeaton.
The reason so many 10-minute plays are unsatisfying is that they are skits rather than mini-dramas, and the payoff is a punchline rather than what the Greek dramatists called a peripeteia, a sudden turnaround, which can be serious or funny, but nevertheless a dramatic surprise. In the world of the screenwriter, this is sometimes called the “reveal.”
One 10-minute play that I believe is a model of economy, moving seamlessly from humor to pathos, is Two Dads, by David Auburn, who wrote the full-length drama Proof, which ran on Broadway for two and a half years. I liked this play so much that I directed it for San Miguel Podcast, with two local actors, Richard Fink and Paul Voudouris. It can be heard on the podcast channel, smapodcast.com.
Though 10-minute plays have existed for more than a century–August Strindberg’s The Stronger runs almost exactly that length–theater historians credit Jon Jory, the producing director of the Actors Theatre of Louisville, with codifying the form. In 1977, the Actors Theatre presented a cycle of “Polaroid plays,” 10-minute dramas commissioned from more than 30 authors, including Athol Fugard, Lee Blessing, and Mary Gallagher. What started as an experiment turned into a theatrical fad, spawning 10-minute-play festivals and competitions all over the map.
The fad hit San Miguel in 2013 with the first Diez Minutos play festival, which has ever since remained a popular annual theatrical event, interrupted only by the pandemic. The next Diez Minutos festival opens on March 8 at the San Miguel Playhouse, and tickets will go on sale in late February. To stay informed, visit boletocity.com, and sign up for the email newsletter.Nearly all my adult life, I have made my living entirely as a writer, mainly from magazine articles and books, and occasionally from screenplays, teleplays, and treatments. I have not yet summoned the nerve to tackle the 10-minute play form. But there are a number of intrepid San Miguel authors who try their hand at it every year for the Playwrights Showcase, which by the time you read this has opened for four performances at the San Miguel Playhouse. Tickets can be purchased online at boletocity.com or at the door. The authors have the good fortune to see their works performed by some of our most talented local actors, such as Mick Diener, Richard Fink, Anne Campbell, Phoebe Greyson, Peggy Powell, and Christian Baumgartner.
Theater
Playwrights Showcase: Seven 10-Minute Plays by San Miguel Authors
San Miguel Playhouse
Thu.-Sat., Feb 9-11, 7pm; Sun., Feb. 12, 3pm
300 and 400 pesos
At boletocity.com or at the door
