“My Mother’s Bookie”/Billy

A team of the company’s core talent is on full display at the American Theatre of Actors in their latest night of one acts. Laurie Rae Waugh directs two pieces by playwright Irving A. Greenfield, “My Mother’s Bookie” and “Billy.” Both feature Ken Coughlin and Michael Bordwell giving wonderful performances.

“My Mother’s Bookie” introduces us to an 102-year-old blind woman, Anna (Ginger Kipps), whose son, Stanley (Bordwell), comes to take her to lunch every week. This week, however, she is refusing to leave because she is waiting on her bookie, Tony Numbers (Coughlin). The back and forth between Anna and Stanley, as well as between these two and the employees of the nursing home Anna lives in (Nicole Arcieri and Tess Cameron) is absolutely delightful. The cast does a great job with dialogue that often feels unnaturally tilted towards the expositional. Being sparked by the playwright’s own family memories, the story shows a lot of love and warmth for these characters. Bordwell’s makeup was often distracting in its attempt to age him, but he and Kipp played really well off one another. They showed exactly the ways family can drive you crazy for all the ways you love them.

“Billy” has the darker tone of the two. A Korean War vet (Coughlin again) tells a story to his friend, a bartender named Munia (Alan Hasnas) as a patron (Bordwell) listens in. He recounts a story from his days in the army over 40 years ago about a soldier he knew named Billy and his untimely death. Coughlin is compelling in his telling as he weaves the tale, and even if the twist at the end is fairly predictable, it is a fascinating story to tell. Coughlin and Hasnas sometimes enact snippets of the story in segments that, though well staged and acted, sometimes feel too brief to be worth the pause for transition. The storytelling in both the writing and the presentation are gripping. By the nature of its framing device, it’s more narrative than “Bookie” and it’s slice of life.

Waugh is the only one credited in any sort of technical or creative capacity outside the playwright. Her staging gave wonderful shape to these plays. And at roughly a hour and a half for both pieces, the run time felt a perfect length for the evening.

In the hands of this team of ATA veterans, these one acts are a captivating example of good story-telling. Despite the disparate tones, that is one thing the shared team brought out in both of them.