Dramatic literature's most famous balcony scene is the tender exchange between the adolescent Romeo and Juliet. A close second is the sequence in Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac where the eponymous big-nose guides the tongue-tied Christian through his verbal romancing of the lovely Roxane. Now, Stephen Adly Guirgis has written what deserves to be the world's third most adored balcony scene in Dominica: The Fat, Ugly 'Ho, which would win the prize for best entry in the Ensemble Studio Theatre's Marathon 2006 if such a prize were given out.

The Guirgis doozy is also the lead-off contender in EST's Series C, which packs five playlets rather than the usual four one-acts into this year's mo[...]

There are two things you can pretty much count on with each of the Ensemble Studio Theatre's annual one-act bills. The first is that each of the programs, which usually include four pieces, will boast a solid, even a knockout work. The second is that the remaining three will probably shake down as one above average and two that don't rise appreciably over the rank of bill-filler. Such a line-up is so likely that it can almost be considered a formula, and EST's Marathon 2006 kick-off series fits the formula just about exactly.

This gem of the collection is David Ives's elegantly mysterious The Other Woman, third on the bill and directed by Walter Bobbie with a concomitant splash of sophi[...]