Phillyist Reviews... Six Seconds in Charlack

The first trick to a successful production is having a really solid script. That should go without saying, but it's amazing how many bad scripts there are out there, being produced with less-than-successful results. Brian Golden's Six Seconds in Charlack is, mercifully, exactly the opposite of that: a tight, clean, well-plotted script that moves along at a good pace and feels significantly shorter than its nearly 150-minute running time.

And handling the script excellently with the help of local director Bill Felty is the newly-formed Nice People Theatre, which was founded by a group of Philadelphia-area Washington University alums. For their inaugural performance, they've secured two weekends at the tiny Shubin Theatre on Fourth and Bainbridge, and that's almost a pity: the theatre seats forty-two (I counted), and across six performances, that simply means that not enough people will get to see this outstanding play. And the run is half over.

It would be hard to summarize Six Seconds in Charlack without giving away some key plot points. I will say that I figured out the play's twist at some point during the first act, but that didn't ruin the rest of the play for me in the slightest. Rather, I think it's actually a testament to Felty's excellent direction: he staged the character interaction in such a way that, if you're paying close enough attention, you'll see that the situation the characters are in is all laid out for you.

Of course, Felty would have found his job much more difficult were it not for his excellent cast-of-four: Bryan Dawidowicz (Bard), Miriam White (Penny), and Scott Robertson (Scoop) were all fantastic in their roles, but I thought that the real star of the ensemble was Nicole Blicher (Candy), who was faced with both the most emotionally and the most physically demanding role in the play, and who, by the end of the show, could make the audience weep just by smiling. Blicher and White also had to face the additional challenge of acting in Six Seconds in Charlack while simultaneously serving as co-founders of the company and working as costume and prop designers, respectively.

Ultimately, Six Seconds in Charlack is nothing short of a satisfying evening of theatre that, unfortunately, isn't going to get the audience it deserves. But if you're free this coming weekend, you should definitely reserve yourself a ticket, and catch this one before it's too late.

Image by George Feder at Top Guns Corporate Photography, Ltd., via Nice People Theatre.