The audience at the Bermuda Musical and Dramatic Society?s ?Famous for 15 Minutes? playwriting competition, which opened Monday night, experienced a mixed bag of uneven writing and fairly good acting.

The evening began with Henry Godfrey?s ?2152?, a humorous look at what conception might be like in the future. I got the distinct feeling that this piece probably works better on the page than on stage.

This play was weakened by stock ideas and imagery; a future where people genetically engineer their children and pick out how tall they?ll be, what colour eyes they?ll have etc. is a future we?ve seen before.

This is partially mediated by the odd amorous virus to which the couple falls ?victim? ? the humour in this piece saved it, and I thought the image of an unexpected rising body part was the most original part of script.

Note to the costume designer: nice to see Bermuda long socks will be haute couture in the future, too!

The strongest play of the evening was Jean Hannant?s ?Happy Ending? which is about a woman, ?Rosie,? who has recently died and is entering Heaven.

In both this play as well as Miss Hannant?s second script for the evening, ?Old Sailors Never Die,? it is clear that she has a great talent for constructing dialogue.

The soft banter and dialogue between Rosie and the angel was quite funny and satisfying; it was sweet without being syrupy.

The strong script was assisted by a terrific performance delivered by Evelyn MacGregor. She played the charming, chatty Rosie to a tee, and I found her totally engaging in her role.

The audience remains fully aware of her simple, human elements despite the celestial circumstances. The only obvious weakness about ?Happy Ending? is that the whole scene of a woman checking in at Heaven?s pearly gates is not particularly original.

Many of the ideas and imagery were predictable and it seemed as if old ideas were reworked for this piece. However, the ending also rescues it from this predictability.

Andra Simons? ?White Cedars,? a play about a gay relationship in Bermuda, had what ?Happy Ending? lacked and lacked what ?Happy Ending? had.

The major strengths of this play were its originality and its beautiful imagery. Even if this play had not been performed in Bermuda, I would have been able to feel the salt spray and taste the loquats.

I am particularly appreciative of this attempt since it was the only play of the evening that had a distinctively Bermudian feel; perhaps this is why Mr. Simons was able to construct what comes across as a very novel piece.

This play also had a complexity that the others lacked; however, this complexity became far too esoteric at times.

I think it would have worked better if the language of the character ?Cameron? had remained consistently salt-of-the-earth throughout the entire piece, providing a counterbalance to the heightened and sometimes cloying language of ?Aye Dunno? ? this happens in the very beginning, but then is lost.

There also seemed to be too many emotional swings occurring almost back-to-back. One moment the character is loving, the next moment violent; ?Aye Dunno? shifts from fearful to defiant with too much rapidity.

?The Brothers Four,? Stuart Doyle?s play about four men who meet before and after vasectomies, has potential. These are four distinctly different types of men, and their initial encounter was punctuated by some funny one-liners. However, the first act was much stronger than the second.

The supposed ?learning curve? was too steep considering these men had previously exchanged such brief sketches about their own circumstances.

The theme of Act II, which was essentially ?I?ve changed my whole way of thinking thanks to you? came across as preachy and improbable.

I won?t say much about the ending because I don?t want to ruin it, but I found it disturbing ? and frankly, I?m not sure if I was disturbed in a bad way or in a good way. You?ll see what I mean, but I?ll definitely say it was the most memorable part of the script.

Jean Hannant?s second entry ?Old Sailors Never Die? about retired military man and the friendship which develops with a housekeeper, was not as strong as her first piece.

As with ?Happy Ending,? the strength of this play lies in her almost uncanny ear for consistent, easy dialogue. However, the dynamic between the characters didn?t work as well.

There was too much intimacy for two people who had just met; they seemed more like a husband and wife of many years.

Although clearly a piece meant to be ?a slice of life,? this may have worked better as part of a longer play; there wasn?t enough tension of any kind to sustain such a short piece.

The final play for the evening, Salil Bhalla?s ?Full Frontal Male Nudity? was probably the most consistently funny submission of the evening, and a fairly strong piece overall.

Despite the stage fright of the lead getting a bit whiney at the end, I liked the dynamic relationship between characters and the clever one-liners.

Usually I?m not one for puns, but they worked in this play. I also thought the breaks to interior monologue were also a very effective way of connecting the audience with the character?s angst.

Also, all four characters in this play were memorable ? the audience had a pretty clear sense of their personalities throughout. If I were judging, this one would probably be the runner-up.

All in all, the submissions for this year?s Famous for 15 Minutes playwriting competition were uneven; however, there were some moments that definitely shone.

As a side note, I found it interesting that Miss Hannant was the only female playwright in this competition; her plays were also, refreshingly, the only two out of the six that did not focus on the phallus and/or sexuality.

The odds are in her favour anyway, so I?m not really going out too far on a limb in predicting that this year?s Golden Inkwell will go to Miss Hannant, whose efforts are bound to have a ?Happy Ending?.