Theatre 40’s One-Act Festival Feels a Bit Thin

Theatre 40’s annual one-act festival is slighter than usual this year. It consists of only three plays, totaling hardly more than 90 minutes (an announced fourth play was withdrawn before opening). The material isn’t particularly meaty, either.

Garry Williams wrote the two pre-intermission plays. Both are realistic glimpses of people at emotional turning points, but both are also fairly predictable and better as acting showcases than as plays. While they might serve well as scenes in longer plays, they aren’t distinctive enough on their own.

In Williams’ “A Blooming of Ivy,” two 60-ish Midwestern farmers--George (Bill Gratton) and his longtime neighbor Ivy (Linde Gibb), each of whom has survived a spouse--begin a tentative romance. The actors make a cute couple. The characters are sweet, and they get our best wishes, yet they hardly need anyone’s help in forging their relationship.

The characters in Williams’ “A Death in Bethany” start out with more urgent problems, and the play is somewhat more involving. Henry and Roz (Kenna James and Stacey Stone) are an estranged couple, each about 30 years old, in the blue-collar Midwest. A drunk Henry barges into the house one night, seeking his kids.

Roz’s resistance begins to melt when Henry tells her his father just died. After considering his own unfortunate relationship with the deceased, he suddenly is seized with paternal impulses. James makes Henry’s passions palpable, and it’s a cathartic scene--but its impact would be stronger if it followed other scenes in which we saw Henry before his epiphany.

After intermission, Jill Remez’s “The Magic Feather” is more enterprising, in part because Remez allowed herself the luxury of a second scene, in part because she’s grappling with a metaphysical issue that’s larger than the psychology of these particular characters.

In an urban diner south of Chicago, waitress Jo (Rae Ruff) returns to work after being the victim of a brutal crime, encouraged in her recovery by an apparent sign from God--the sudden, unsolicited appearance of HBO on her TV. She isn’t pleased to learn that her colleague Diana (Amy Beth Cohn) actually arranged for the HBO as a get-well gift, for it puts a damper on her theory that it was a divine miracle.

Diana’s revelation raises questions of whether people need God. Cohn’s Diana is an effective advocate for the disbelievers, while the women’s boss Juan (Ed Martin) leads the case for the defense. Remez’s mildly clever ending adds a hint of mystery.

Andre Barron produced the festival and directed “Bethany.” Ann-Giselle Spiegler staged “Ivy” and Roger Kern did the honors on “Feather.”

* Theatre 40’s eighth annual One-Act Festival, 241 Moreno Drive, on the Beverly Hills High School campus. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends Feb. 9. $12. (213) 466-1767. Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes.