'Alone in the Light' treats issues with comic bite

Bloomington's theater artists have given the community a great deal of original work this season. This burgeoning of new, local work made the Bloomington Playwrights Project "Alone in the Light" all the more exciting and gratifying. The event featured eleven monologues written and performed by BPP ensemble members, who were literally 'alone in the light' of the BPP's Lora Shiner Studio.\nEach monologue expressed concern for specific issues -- homeland security, colonialism, toxic relationships, small town small-mindedness -- usually treated with comic bite.\nBrothers Cory and Todd Aiello each performed pieces marked by a funny and sympathetic awkwardness. In Breshaun Joyner's "Homeland Security at the Fluff and Fold," Cory said to an admirer of his superbly folded laundry that he obtained the skill at his job -- inspecting suspicious baggage at the airport. Todd faces a tougher audience in Nicole Bruce's "The Trouble Is ..." where he distinguishes to students in a college lecture hall what cuts of meat Hindus can't eat.\nOther standout comic pieces included "Fairy Tale Confidential: Red Riding Hood," written and performed by Jenny Rouse, where a disgruntled Red Riding Hood makes her frustrations known about the absurdity of her story.\n"Where's my Disney movie?" she asks.\nThe best performance of the evening belonged to Julia Weiss, who performed JimBob's "Handle Sex," an account of teenage love gone wrong and the consequences of actually liking Britney Spears' music.\nThe majority of comic pieces gave the dramatic ones extra lift. Pat Anderson's "Caroline" about a woman confronting her son who wants to marry a woman coming from the same tribe that killed his father, was given grace and humanity by Lori Garraghty. Jeremy Wilson gave the hour-long event a soft, sweet ending in his performance of artistic director Richard Perez's "Waking Up," about a young man trying to find peace with the loss of his father, exploring his masculinity in comparison to the other guys in his dorm and falling in love.