GLORIA PLASCENCIA, CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Conspiratorial glances darting between the director and the author of “The Ten-Year Plan” – you know what that means, don’t you? No? I’ll tell you: Don’t spill the beans about our world premiere, that’s what.
Gerry Athas-Vazquez is having her play produced this Saturday and Sunday at the Second Story Theatre, located in the Hermosa Beach Community Center. She’s a local resident, one of the owners of Uncorked and The Deck, and all three of her sons graduated from Mira Costa High School.
A while back, Vazquez produced two evenings of ten-minute plays, and she’s also a member of the Hermosa Arts Foundation. “My goal,” she says, “is to bring more original theater into Hermosa.”
The Second Story Theatre is one of those black box, under-99-seat venues that have great potential but are probably under-utilized. Surf City Theatre presents lighter fare in the space, and before that it was occasionally the showcase for new, edgy work by Angelo Masino and even a former Easy Reader reporter, Dashing Danny Brown.
Julie Vasquez Nunis, who’s directing “The Ten-Year Plan,” is a New Mexico native with a theater degree from the University of Texas in Austin. After a brief stint in New York she moved West: “I landed at the office of Joan Stein, who was a former Broadway producer, and we produced Steve Martin’s play, ‘Picasso at the Lapin Agile,’ in Chicago, San Francisco, L.A., and New York.” Apart from some professional TV acting, Nunis was also a member of the West Coast Ensemble where she co-produced Terrence McNally’s “The Lisbon Traviata.”
Maybe I saw her there and didn’t know it. It was, after all, a memorable production and I reviewed it for this newspaper.
Nunis lives in Hermosa, and her two daughters attend school there. That said, proceeds from “The Ten-Year Plan are going towards the Hermosa Beach Education Foundation as well as the Mira Costa Drama Club.
“Like Gerry,” Nunis says, “I love original plays – the freedom and the creativity. So, that’s why I’m here, to help put that up.”
Happiness is a warm gun
You’ve been writing plays for a long time, have you?
“Yes,” Vazquez replies. “I had a couple of other full-length plays that I’d been working on, but this one has been a long time in coming. It was workshopped in a theater group in Hollywood, and it had a staged reading ten years ago.”
She looked, without success, for someone to produce “The Ten-Year Plan.” A writing mentor encouraged her to produce it herself. Then it hit her: “When I realized it was ten years ago that I had the staged reading I said, Oh my goodness, we just have to put this together now or it will never happen.”
That’s when she called Julie Nunis. “It was in the spring, and here we are.”
Yes, here we are. Okay how did the story come about?
There’s a slight hesitation. “I don’t want to give too much away about the play,” Vazquez says. “It’s actually about a marriage, and it’s about two people who have a really twisted idea of what happiness is. I write a lot about the question of happiness, the idea of happiness; what is happiness? How do we become happy and what are we doing when we’re happy?
“So this married couple makes a little bit of a pact about happiness and the story of the pact unfolds during the play.”
Uh-huh, that sounds intriguing so far…
“The play takes place on their tenth anniversary,” Vazquez adds, “and the whole discussion of this pact that they made unfolds during the play.”
Okay. Now we know what the title refers to.
It’s about expectations people have when they’re in a relationship, Nunis says, “when you wake up on certain anniversaries.”
Does the couple have children? Where are they?
“They’re on the East Coast,” Vazquez says. “I’m originally from New York, so they’re on the East Coast – and they do not have children.” She pauses. “You’ll find out why.”
“Because they ate them,” I reply, smiling, since that’s what they’ll be doing in my childrens book, “Lassie Eats Her Young.”
“Maybe in the next play,” Vazquez says enigmatically.
(Between you and me, reader, they’re keeping an awful lot of secrets from me, from us. Maybe this is “Sexual Perversity in the Bronx” or something.)
“It’s kind of an examination of what happens in a relationship,” Vazquez continues, “your behavior in a relationship, how that affects the other person, and how their behavior affects you.”
“When she says twisted,” Nunis explains, “that’s the part of the relationship (that), whoever your spouse is, is private to you and it seems normal. But on the outside, if someone were watching them, they would think, Wow, that is a really twisted couple; that does not seem normal. But inside their apartment, in their bedroom, it’s normal. But it’s not. And we all have that. So, even though it examines a relationship that sounds very lovely, it’s a twistedness that we think is normal.
“She goes all the way to the wall, to use that phrase,” Nunis continues. “If you’re not happy what would you do to your spouse, with your spouse? If you are happy, what would you do? And all of that is covered – in one location – on their tenth anniversary.”
I’m guessing there’s a lot of dialogue?
“A lot of dialogue, and a lot of movement on a very tiny stage,” Nunis says, “which is a challenge, but a good challenge. We have amazing actors who are happy to be put in strange positions, physically and emotionally.”
Did you hear it? That’s the cue for this writer to sketch in a few lines about the cast, which, fortunately, numbers just two. Imagine if this was “Les Misérables”!
Victor Rivers has dozens of film, TV, and stage credits to his name, and currently he’s the national spokesman for the National Network to End Domestic Violence. He’s also written a book about the subject.
Cathy Shambley Baer is an actress, teacher, writer, and a member of the Groundlings. This implies that she’s quick on her feet and wittier than Whittier.
GLORIA PLASCENCIA, CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Raising some eyebrows?
Julie Nunis says that a primary goal is simply to get people into the theater to see the show.
“The intimacy here allows the actors to be a little bit more playful, even though the audience is right in their face. It’s something we’ve talked about, things that they’re gonna see that might look wrong or right because they’re sitting right there, two feet away from you – whereas in the big theater they wouldn’t see that.
“At the same time,” she adds, “you have huge actors in stature, and in personality, that explode on this little stage. So that kind of sets you back in your chair.”
It sounds very dynamic; and it’s not for young audiences?
“Correct,” Vazquez says. “”There’s definitely an adult…”
Ah! Triple X!
“I wouldn’t say that…”
“Act three,” Nunis reminds her.
“It’s definitely R-rated,” Vazquez says. “Seventeen and over.”
Well, you know, all the usual interchangeable subjects – language and sexual content, happiness, marriage and death.
“It includes some things that you would rather not talk about in front of your children,” Vazquez says.
“But I think it will hit home with a lot of audience members because of that,” Nunis says. “Those are the subjects that are taboo sometimes, but they are there and they have to be dealt with. And sometimes, if they’re not dealt with, they manifest themselves in other ways.”
It would be nice to see a little theater like this nurture a feisty reputation for the edgy and the renegade. Hermosa Beach could use that.
“Well, this is definitely on the edge,” Vazquez says.
“You can take more risks (in a small theater),” Nunis says, “because if you’re selling 500 seats you’re gonna smooth over the risks a little bit. Here, we’re not that worried about that. We’ll throw the swear words around and we’ll get dirty with it. And it’s fun. Especially when you have actors who are willing to do that.”
Can you do more plays here if this one is successful?
“We definitely want to do more plays,” Gerry Vazquez replies.
In that case, here’s to their success – and more plays.
“The Ten-Year Plan”
Where: The Second Story Theatre, 710 Pier Ave., Hermosa Beach
When: Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 5 p.m.
How much: $35 in advance; $40 at the door (see below; also in person at Uncorked, 302 Pier Ave., H.B.)
Call: (310) 413-4089
Online: eventbrite.com
