It would be wrong to suggest sneaking in at intermission, but you may want to at least bring a good book for the first half of “Marathon 2010: Series A,” the first installment of the Ensemble Studio Theatre’s annual presentation of one-acts.
It isn’t until the second part of the evening that anything remotely interesting happens onstage.
The pleasures arrive courtesy of “Turnabout,” Daniel Reitz’s wickedly amusing and beautifully acted depiction of what happens when Josh (Lou Liberatore), an actor, asks his ex-lover Dennis (John-Martin Green) for $15,000 to pay his new partner’s medical bills, Josh having dumped Dennis years before.
Dennis, now flush thanks to his relationship with a hedge-fund millionaire, is initially dismissive. But he finally agrees, with one condition: that Josh help out as a waiter for a dinner party.
Just how Josh gets his comeuppance — “I know Tony Kushner!” he pompously announces at one point — is too deliciously comic to reveal, but it involves a surprisingly astute go-go dancer (Haskell King) and an outlandish G-string.
Also worthwhile is “Where the Children Are,” a series of intertwined monologues depicting the anguish of five parents of soldiers stationed in Iraq. While the subject is by now painfully familiar, playwright Amy Fox provides enough intriguing characterizations and situations to make it more than the usual weepy lament.
The fare is otherwise mediocre. “Safe” concerns a man’s interaction with his troubled stepson after the boy’s accused of assaulting a female classmate, while the seemingly endless “Wild Terrain” depicts the contentious relationship between a couple of long-married retirees.
At least “Matthew and the Pastor’s Wife” has the courtesy to provide a surprising if ridiculous and violent finale to jolt us awake.