Saratoga News

Photograph by Robert Scheer

Hunter, played by Bill Decker, tries to convince Fran, played by Mary Jane Reiter, that her sexual orientation isn't natural. The two are actors in one of seven adult plays to be performed at West Valley College Theater.

Plays at WVC tackle taboos with humor

By Shari Kaplan

Sex, money and spirituality--these, along with politics, comprise the topics people are not supposed to delve into in casual conversation, unless they want to risk an embarrassing or aggravating confrontation.

That makes these the perfect topics for a collection of seven "adult plays" being performed at West Valley College's theater by members of the San Jose-based Stage One Theatre Company. Although written to be humorous, they are also realistic and thought-provoking portrayals of interpersonal communications and relationships.

Dennis Sakamoto, founder and director of Stage One, selected the plays from among the "10-Minute Plays" developed by the Actors Theatre of Louisville, a group he has been involved with since its 1977 inception. The plays range from approximately nine to 20 minutes long and have a unique format.

"You enter the play on its rise to the climax. It's concise and fast-paced and holds the audience's attention," he explains. "The seven plays I've chosen center around the relationships of men and women at home, work and other places.

"The plays are based around two chairs and a table, so the audience gets to take part in where the plays take place," adds Sakamoto, who is a professional actor--on stage and in TV and film--as well as an instructor.

Sakamoto points out that in addition to the somewhat minimal set, which encourages the imagination, the fact that the plays deal with topics everyone can relate to enables audience members to fill in the beginnings and backgrounds based on their own life experiences. This makes for more relevant viewing.

Saratoga resident Bill Decker finds a different kind of relevance because he is an actor in one of the plays, called The Last Time We Saw Her. A student of Sakamoto's since 1989, Decker's acting abilities blossomed later in life, but already he has appeared in 19 college and community plays and many TV commercials and industrial films. He makes his living as a stockbroker.

In the play, Decker plays the narrow-minded boss of a woman who confides in him that she is a lesbian and doesn't like having to hide it from the rest of the office.

"As my character, I do not deal with this information very well because I have preconceived notions of what gay people are like," he explains. "I spend the rest of the play trying to figure out how to deal with it. It's kind of funny--in a black sort of way--how we interact."

What's ironic is that last year, Sakamoto cast Decker as a gay man in a play. Neither narrow-minded nor gay, Decker says these roles are examples of what he loves about the challenges of acting.

In being a character actor, Decker always finds something in himself--such as beliefs, sentiments or past experiences--that enable him to empathize with and get into the mind of a character.

"Each character has various parts of his personality that I discover about my own self and personality. As I read and study a play before the rehearsals, I'll see that the character has some of the same qualities as me," he says. "The degree that I'm able to do that convincingly is the degree that the audience will be able to believe it."

'Sex, Money and Spirituality: A Collection of Adult Plays' runs Jan. 30-31 and Feb. 1, 6, 7 and 8 at the West Valley College Theater, located at 14000 Fruitvale Ave., Saratoga. Each year, Stage One performances are fundraisers for various charities. This year's recipient is the Alano Club West's building fund for its alcohol recovery center. For show times and ticket information, call 293-6362.

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